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From: arosen@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Andy Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: what does the link count of a directory show?
Message-ID: <1299@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu>
Date: Wed, 20-May-87 09:51:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulowell.1299
Posted: Wed May 20 09:51:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 23-May-87 06:11:24 EDT
References: <12913@vaxc.ARPA>
Reply-To: arosen@ulowell.cs.ulowell.edu (Andy Rosen)
Organization: University of Lowell
Lines: 16
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.questions:2430 comp.unix.wizards:2402

In article <12913@vaxc.ARPA> mkhaw@vaxc.ARPA (Michael Khaw) writes:
>What does the "link count" shown by "ls -ld" mean for a directory?
>Is it the same for SysV and 4bsd?

It's just like for a file.  It'll always (hopefully) be at least two.  One for
the directory itself, and one for ".".  It's increased by one every time a
sub-directory is added in it (for "..").  For what it's worth, you can tell
how many sub-directories a directory has even if you can't look at the
directory by looking at the link count.

It's the same for SysV and BSD.

-- 
Andy Rosen         | ulowell!arosen | ************* | "I got this guitar and I
ULowell, Box #3031 |                | * RD in '88 * |  learned how to make it
Lowell, Ma 01854   |                | ************* |  talk" -Thunder Road