Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!gatech!hao!oddjob!gargoyle!ihnp4!homxb!mhuxt!mhuxm!mhuxh!mhuxo!ulysses!allegra!alice!ark From: ark@alice.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: stupidity in directory management? Message-ID: <7078@alice.UUCP> Date: Fri, 10-Jul-87 14:41:13 EDT Article-I.D.: alice.7078 Posted: Fri Jul 10 14:41:13 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jul-87 01:52:19 EDT References: <603@nonvon.UUCP> Distribution: na Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner NJ Lines: 22 In article <603@nonvon.UUCP>, mc68020@nonvon.UUCP writes: > After a file is removed, it's "slot" in the directory isn't re-used! The > damned directory keeps growing larger and LARGER. Not quite true. The following applies, as far as I know, to all versions of the UNIX system except Berkeley 4.2 and 4.3. I don't know the situation for those systems. Directories have the convention that an inode number of 0 means the directory entry is available, regardless of whether there's a name in it or not. When you remove a link to a file, the inode number in that directory is zeroed but the name stays around. When creating a new directory entry, the system uses the first available slot, where "available" means "inode == 0" It is true that a directory can never shrink. However, the size of a directory will never be greater than the maximum number of entries that directory has ever contained.