Patent ID: 7739318

Claim:
A method for maintaining a mapping from a data container to a parent directory within a file system of a storage operating system, comprising: providing a primary name data structure within an inode associated with the data container having a parent directory inode field and a parent directory cookie field, the primary name data structure identifying a primary name associated with the inode and mapping the data container to its parent directory within the file system of the storage operating system, the primary name persistently stored within the file system, wherein the parent directory cookie field identifies a specified directory entry within a specified directory block of a directory identified by the parent directory inode field; providing an alternate name data container storing a plurality of alternate names associated with the inode, the alternate name data container including a file organized as B+ tree; storing the alternate name data container within a hidden metadata directory of the file system of the storage operating system, wherein the alternate name data container is persistently stored within the file system; and identifying, by the file system, a pathname to the data container using information stored in the primary name data structure.