file names = inodes : why?

[Ari Rubenstein]

On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, Harald Hanche-Olsen wrote:

> qmail needs inode numbers to generate unique message numbers.

This has come up a few times here (we are running qmail on a good number
of machines.)

Is the inode just a handy unique number?  Or are there file access
speed tricks, e.g. opening files directly using inode.

I would like it to be more convenient to manage the queue while mail is
being delivered...  :-)

- Ari

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Ari Rubenstein                          Unix ISA
Digex, West Coast                       408-873-4256