Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 20 Jul 2002 15:00:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 20 Jul 2002 15:00:59 -0400 Received: from pimout2-ext.prodigy.net ([207.115.63.101]:12764 "EHLO pimout2-int.prodigy.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 20 Jul 2002 15:00:58 -0400 Message-Id: <200207201904.g6KJ434325356@pimout2-int.prodigy.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Rob Landley To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Fwd: Re: What does the "i" in inode stand for? Dennis Ritchie doesn't know either. Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 09:05:42 -0400 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2587 Lines: 59 Dennis Ritchie hath replied, unto the masses, with a resounding "dunno" from on high... ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Re: What does the "i" in inode stand for? Nobody seems to know... Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 00:52:39 -0400 From: Dennis Ritchie To: landley@trommello.org In truth, I don't know either. It was just a term that we started to use. "Index" is my best guess, because of the slightly unusua file systeml structure that stored the access information of files as a flat array on the disk, with all the hierarchical directory information living aside from this. Thus the the i-number is an index in this array, the i-node is the selected element of the array. (The "i-" notation was used in the 1st edition manual; its hyphen became gradually dropped). Dennis Received: from scummy.research.bell-labs.com ([135.104.2.10]) by plan9; Fri Jul 19 01:37:05 EDT 2002 Received: from scummy.research.bell-labs.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by scummy.research.bell-labs.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g6J5aik93810 for ; Fri, 19 Jul 2002 01:36:44 -0400 (EDT) Received: from dusty.research.bell-labs.com (dusty.research.bell-labs.com [135.104.2.7]) by scummy.research.bell-labs.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id g6J5agk93799 for ; Fri, 19 Jul 2002 01:36:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pimout3-int.prodigy.net ([207.115.63.102]) by dusty; Fri Jul 19 01:36:37 EDT 2002 Received: from there (adsl-66-136-201-37.dsl.austtx.swbell.net [66.136.201.37]) by pimout3-int.prodigy.net (8.11.0/8.11.0) with SMTP id g6J5ada198782 for ; Fri, 19 Jul 2002 01:36:39 -0400 Message-Id: <200207190536.g6J5ada198782@pimout3-int.prodigy.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" From: Rob Landley To: dmr@bell-labs.com Subject: What does the "i" in inode stand for? Nobody seems to know... Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 19:38:19 -0400 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I asked on the linux-kernel mailing list, and got four different replies. The votes so far are "information", "index", "incore", and "indirection", with more coming in... Care to clear up this mystery for the younger generation? :) Rob ------------------------------------------------------- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/