Man page 9 : iget_locked

iget_locked - obtain an inode from a mounted file system

struct inode * iget_locked(struct super_block *  sb , unsigned long  ino );

sb
    super block of file system

ino
    inode number to get

Search for the inode specified by ino in the inode cache and if present return it with an increased reference count. This is for file systems where the inode number is sufficient for unique identification of an inode.

If the inode is not in cache, allocate a new inode and return it locked, hashed, and with the I_NEW flag set. The file system gets to fill it in before unlocking it via unlock_new_inode.