> Let me rephrase my question a little bit: BESIDES the obvious > usage of "." entry, in terms of the filesystem, what is the > purpose of "." entry? > > The obvious answer is that you can refer to the current > directory using "./", however, in order to look up the "." > entry, the kernel must have a knowledge of the current > directory in the first place, doesn't it? The kernel needs > the directory table for the current directory to look up > which inode the "." entry refers to. Doesn't that seem a > little redundant, since the kernel already knows what the > current directory is? > If the kernel is already caching the current directory table, > it might as well just cache the current directory's inode. > > Coming back to my original question, does the kernel really > need that "." entry? or is it purely for the user convenience? > See: http://www.kerneltraffic.org/kernel-traffic/kt20050404_305.html#4 - Sekhar Nori. -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
