How to waste computer memory?

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com>:

> On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 6:49 PM, Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>> Speaking of the low level, the classic UNIX file system doesn't make
>> use of pathnames. Rather, the files are nameless. They are identified
>> by the device (= file system) number plus the inode number.
>
> Not entirely fair. A file system has directories in it, which have
> names in them referencing other inodes. So while you can get to the
> contents of the file given only its inode, but the path names are very
> much a part of the file system too.

Not all files have pathnames. Those that do have numerous pathnames. You
can't tell by looking at a file what pathnames, if any, it might have.
You need an exhaustive, recursive search of the file system for the
reverse mapping.

If you execute the commands:

   echo hello >hello
   rm hello

You don't know for sure if the file you removed was the file you created
on the previous line.


Marko