Patent ID: 8903761

Claim:
A method for retrieving inode to pathname information within a file system, comprising: requesting, by a user, a primary pathname associated with a data container; determining, by a processor, whether a primary name data structure within a metadata portion of an inode associated with the data container contains a specific value, the specific value signifies that the file system has not yet identified an appropriate inode to pathname (I2P) mapping information for the inode, wherein the primary name data structure includes a parent directory inode field that contains an inode value that is associated with a parent directory of the data container and a parent directory cookie field that identifies an entry in a directory associated with the parent directory inode; in response to determining the primary name data structure does not contain the specific value, identifying, by the file system, the primary pathname for the requested data container using information stored in the primary name data structure; determining whether an option has been selected to display alternate pathnames; and in response to determining the option has been selected, returning and displaying the primary pathname and one or more alternate pathnames on a display device, wherein an alternate pathname data container stores the one or more alternate pathnames associated with the inode.