https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=196405 --- Comment #8 from Paul Eggert (eggert@xxxxxxxxxxx) --- (In reply to Theodore Tso from comment #1) > In order to support a large > number of directories, when we have a 16-bit link count field, we use > a link count of 1 to mean, "lots". Where is this behavior documented? I don't see it mentioned in e2fsprogs/doc/libext2fs.texinfo. Where should I look? > various userspace utilities that try to optimize > directory walking by depending on the directory's link count to > understand when they have found all of the subdirectories know that > directory link count of 1 means "lots". Although I've been contributing to the GNU core utilities for many years, this behavior is news to me. I just checked the GNU coreutils source, and these utilities do not know that 1 means "lots". Although the code happens to work, it is pure luck. GNU findutils is similar. The GNU C library's fts functions can misbehave on file systems where st_nlink undercounts the number of subdirectories. To reproduce the problem, run the program fts-test.c (attached to this bug report) in a fresh directory. On an ext4 file system, the program outputs "0 needles found (should be 2)" and fails, due to the incompatibility between ext4 st_nlink behavior and what the GNU C library expects. -- You are receiving this mail because: You are watching the assignee of the bug.
