unsequential file inode numbering

["Jeff Lia" <jeffreyallenlia@hotmail.com>]

Hi,

I am creating a large number of files of zero length and the inodes 
associated with each file increase near sequentially.  Every now and then 
they jump an extra 10+.

         dd if=/dev/zero bs=2k count=0 of=PAD294
         n=294; set $(ls -i PAD$n); i=$1; while [ $i -le 400 ]; do n=`expr 
$n + 1`; dd if=/dev/zero bs=2k count=0 of=PAD$n; set $(ls -i PAD$n); i=$1; 
done
         ls -li
             294 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD294
             295 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD295
             296 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD296
             297 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD297
             ...
             333 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD333
             334 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD334
             335 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD335
             337 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD336
             350 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD337
             351 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD338
             352 -rw-r--r--    1 root     root            0 Aug 10 12:00 
PAD339

What happened?  Why did it all of a sudden jump from 335 to 337 then to 350? 
 I've noticed it jumps like this time and time again the more files I make?

On that note, is there a way to gain access to the next available inode 
number from the inode list without having to create a file and see what its 
inode is?  I ask because I assumed each would stay sequential and I could 
create these PAD files for my purposes up to PAD4095 such that the next file 
would be at 4096 but this is untrue due to these jumps described above.

The files I want to start putting at inode number 4096 onward want be 
sequential in inode numbers.  The only work around for this situation 
requires re-programming mkisofs code (for my purposes) so I wish to solve 
this in a hopefully simpler manner.

Thank you!

Jeff

_________________________________________________________________
Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and 
more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx