File inodes

When you go to a grocery store, you will find that each product has a set of attributes like:

• Product type: Chocolate
• Product price: $2.50
• Product supplier: Kit Kat
• Amount left: 199

These attributes can be displayed on any product in the grocery store by scanning the product's barcode. And each barcode is unique, of course. Well, you can apply this analogy to Linux. Every file on Linux has a set of attributes like:

• File type
• File size
• File owner
• File permissions
• Number of hard links
• File timestamp

These attributes are stored in a data structure called the inode (index node), and each inode is identified by a number (inode number). So you can think of inode numbers like the barcodes in a grocery store. Every file in Linux has an inode number and every inode number points to a file data structure, that is, the inode. And here is a formal definition of an inode:

What is an Inode?

An inode is simply a file data structure that stores file information (attributes), and every inode is uniquely identified by a number (inode number).