Hi! > > > > Some of us have machines designed to cope with cosmic rays, and would be > > > > unimpressed with a decrease in reliability. > > > > > > With the suggested samefile() interface you'd get a failure with just > > > about 100% reliability for any application which needs to compare a > > > more than a few files. The fact is open files are _very_ expensive, > > > no wonder they are limited in various ways. > > > > > > What should 'tar' do when it runs out of open files, while searching > > > for hardlinks? Should it just give up? Then the samefile() interface > > > would be _less_ reliable than the st_ino one by a significant margin. > > > > You need at most two simultenaously open files for examining any > > number of hardlinks. So yes, you can make it reliable. > > Well, sort of. Samefile without keeping fds open doesn't have any > protection against the tree changing underneath between first > registering a file and later opening it. The inode number is more You only need to keep one-file-per-hardlink-group open during final verification, checking that inode hashing produced reasonable results. Pavel -- Thanks for all the (sleeping) penguins. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html