How to get inode from alias file? In this MacWorld forum thread aliases are described as


  Aliases can reference an object in the file system either by a 
  persistent ID or by path. Generally they will contain both 
  pieces of information.


Is there a way to access the persistent ID an alias is pointing to with either AppleScript or bash?
Try:

set aliasPath to "Mac OS X:Users:John:Desktop:test.txt alias"

tell application "Finder"
    set myalias to file aliasPath
    set myFile to original item of myalias
end tell

set filePath to myFile as text
set inode to first word of (do shell script "ls -i " &amp; quoted form of (POSIX path of filePath))