Problem related to Linux unlink() function

Hi,

I went through the documentation of unlink() function. I believe that if there are multiple links to a file then calling unlink() to delete that file should just decrease the link count of that file but should not delete the file. I tried this using a C program that uses unlink() to delete a file 'file' that has two symbolic links 'L0_file' and 'L1_file'.

After the program was run, I found that the file was deleted. How is this possible since there were two links to this file present in the same directory?

If I have misinterpreted something then please clarify.

Symbolic links don't count.

You need to create hard links to a file to get the behaviour you're looking for.

Try ls -i to see the inode number of the files, eg

Code:

---

#ls -i1 *.txt
206417 p65535-1.txt
206418 p65535-2.txt
206458 ex2.txt
206458 L_ex2.txt
206426 oni2009a.txt

---

I've tried -i1 to list the inode numbers is 1 line. Note the file with inode number 206458 :)

I created a couple of hard links to original file. Then executed the code to delete the original file. The file was deleted from the directory but hard links were able to show the content of the original file. Is this the correct behaviour?

Also, In a separate try, since I had created 2 hard links. I called the function unlink() twice on the same file. The original file was deleted from the directory but in this case too the hard links were able to show the content of the original file.

I am confused!!!!

A file contents is the data physically on the disk.
When you delete a file, what you are really deleting if information about the file, not the data itself.
The information about the file contains the file name, date of last modification ... and inode number.
You can have several directory entries (information about a file) with information about the same physical data: it appears you have different files. Deleting one directory entry does not delete the physical data: only deletes that specific way to access the data (if there are more ways to access the data it is still safe; if there are no more ways to access the data, the system may write over the physical data when it wants).

Each directory entry (for a regular file, not symbolic links or device files) is a hard link to the file inode. Every inode that has can be accessed by name in a directory has a reference count of 1 or more. When you make a hard link, you're creating another name for the same file, and this automatically increments the reference count of the inode. Deleting a directory entry decrements the inode's reference count and if the reference count reaches zero (and if no processes have the file open) the inode is freed because nothing points to it anymore.

Edit: I should explain what an inode is. An inode contains all information about a file except for its name. The inode also contains pointers (not C pointers) to the file contents.