>Can that space that the file takes up be overwritten during >this interim? Or does the OS hold the inode sacrosanct until >both references AND processes are no longer making use of it?
Right - the OS's official record of a file's state is the (in-memory copy of the) inode - the directory entries are simply tags. Once a file is opened the kernel's relationship with that file is entirely via the inode and deletion of one or all of the corresponding directory entries has no effect on that relationship, which persists until the refcount goes to zero, ie. all procs that had it open have closed it. Only then will allocated disk space be released and eligible for reuse. _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/