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authorJim Meyering <meyering@redhat.com>2008-07-02 18:01:43 +0200
committerJim Meyering <meyering@redhat.com>2009-09-01 07:07:45 +0200
commita977dbbe78f4dcb64e008f41c8a46c4972af834b (patch)
tree3be345b10aa1da67137c6071bfb1d18251c94c88 /NEWS
parenta4e123abd3dab42f48cc79d9e2c1cbc72e77d18b (diff)
downloadcoreutils-a977dbbe78f4dcb64e008f41c8a46c4972af834b.tar.xz
ls -i: print consistent inode numbers also for mount points
On most unix- and linux-based kernels, ls -i DIR_CONTAINING_MOUNT_POINT would print the wrong inode number for any entry that is a mount point. It would do that by relying on readdir's dirent.d_ino values, while most readdir implementations return the inode number of the underlying, inaccessible directory. Thus, it is not consistent with what you'd get when applying stat to the same entry. This bug led to surprising results like "ls -i" and "ls -i --color" printing different numbers (ls must usually "stat" a file to colorize its name). This change makes it so that on offending systems, ls must stat non-command-line-arguments for which otherwise it would be able to use "for free" dirent.d_ino values. Regardless of this change, ls is already required to stat every command-line argument. Note: versions of GNU ls prior to coreutils-6.0 did not perform the invalid optimization, and hence always printed correct inode numbers. Thus, for the sake of correctness, ls -i is forgoing the readdir optimization, for any kernel (including linux!) with POSIX-nonconforming readdir. Note that currently, only Cygwin has been agile enough to conform. * src/ls.c (RELIABLE_D_INO): Define. (print_dir): Use it. For plenty of discussion, see this long thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.coreutils.bugs/14020 This bug was introduced by the 2006-02-26 commit, 33eb3efe: "In ls, avoid calling stat for --inode (-i), when possible." * tests/ls/readdir-mountpoint-inode: New test. * tests/Makefile.am (TESTS): Add it. * tests/ls/stat-vs-dirent: Don't suppress failure of this test, now that ls -i is fixed. Though note that it doesn't test well, since it compares only the always-stat'd command-line arguments. * NEWS (Bug fixes): Mention it.
Diffstat (limited to 'NEWS')
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diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 39666faa3..50c40be4d 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -16,6 +16,11 @@ GNU coreutils NEWS -*- outline -*-
printing a summary to stderr.
[bug introduced in coreutils-6.11]
+ ls -i now prints consistent inode numbers also for mount points.
+ This makes ls -i DIR less efficient on systems with dysfunctional readdir,
+ because ls must stat every file in order to obtain a guaranteed-valid
+ inode number. [bug introduced in coreutils-6.0]
+
** New features
cp --reflink accepts a new "auto" parameter which falls back to