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Question: What is the purpose of the "link count" in the inode in the unix filesystem? It is incremented when the file is linked into the filesystem somewhere, and decremented when the file is unlinked; but why does the unix operating system have to track this information?

Answer: When the link count goes to zero, the file can be truly deleted and the disk space reclaimed for reallocation to other files. As long as the link count is positive, the file and its disk space is still in use.

[back to CSC 209 problems about the unix filesystem]