Unfortunately there is a whole bunch of other things too that rely on
it, and *HAVE* to rely on it -- (st_dev, st_ino) are defined to
specify the identity of a file, and if the current types aren't large
enough we *HAVE* to go to new types. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO TEST
FOR FILE IDENTITY IN UNIX, and being able to perform such a test is
vital for many things, including security and hard link detection
(think tar, cpio, cp -a.)
-hpa
-- <hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot." http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt <amsp@zytor.com> - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/