Ambiguous file/directory listing component in UNIX(ls-la)

Question

Total noob question, but I am looking @ the permissions of a directory that looks like this:

drwxr-xr-x   3 username  groupname     102 Sep  4 14:15 .file

What I am trying to figure out is what exactly is the number(3) between the file/directory permissions and the file/directory owner?

I am referencing a bunch of different online documentation, including the man pages and this page here:

http://www.brandx.net/support/usingtelnet/unixint.shtml

But none of them specify what number is? I am trying to change to 4

Answer 1

The number 3 provided in your example is a hard link. See the links below for more information.

Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link

Hard Link vs Soft Link: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/understanding-unixlinux-symbolic-soft-and-hard-links.html