If execution speed is **really** critical then you'll have to go to C (or something else low-level and fast) as the mere overhead of running perl will be enough to slow you down from the sounds of it. Also, if you really want to grok the inode table you'll have to rule out perl as it doesn't have the functionality to do *really* low-level file-system stuff (unless you use XS or Inline::C).

I'm not a file-system ninja but I'd say the best place to look for inode info without actually reading straight off the 'metal' is to use the stat() function in C which should be in your standard library (and if you don't, you've got quite an unusual C install and a magical version of perl) and subsequently is very portable so worry not (too much ;-) about migrating it to other *nixes.
HTH

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broquaint