*Quickly* counting the number of files on a partition

[Ian Zimmerman]

Madison>    Can I *quickly* get the number of files (and dirs, links,
Madison> etc) on a given partition or under a certain directory? The two
Madison> keeps are "quickly" and "partition"; it's can't traverse file
Madison> systems /or/ be limited to a directory (and it's sub
Madison> directories).

Depends:

1/ what you mean by "file".  Most Unix filesystems can link multiple
names to a single entity known as inode.

2/ if you need _just_ complete partitions or arbitrary directory trees.

If you're fine with counting just inodes on a complete partition, the
answer is yes: man statfs(2) or man stat(1) (in particular the -f flag).

Otherwise, you need someone smarter than me to answer :)

-- 
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