inode

An inode is a data structure on a traditional Unix-style file system such as UFS or ext3. An inode stores basic information about a regular file, directory, or other file system object.

see inode number of a file:

ex: ls  -i  test3.c

715775 test3.c

see info about the file

ex: stat  test3.c

File: `test3.c'

Size: 451       Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file

Device: 303h/771d Inode: 715775      Links: 1

Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)

Access: 2009-01-06 22:11:55.000000000 +0800

Modify: 2008-12-22 17:43:56.000000000 +0800

Change: 2008-12-22 17:43:56.000000000 +0800