How to uniquely/permanently identify a file

Hi,

I am writing a file management application in VB6. The way it works is that it scans a given directory, and then for each file found in that directory, my application asks certain info (File Description, Rating 1-5, Category, etc.), generates an identifier which is = filename.ext and then uses this identifier for all other operations such as copy, move, delete etc.

Now, the issue is that I need some definite/universal identifier for each file. Because, the filename may change over time, I will have to find some other "hash" or some other mechanism for a file which will keep it independent from rename, move, delete etc.

I believe, in unix there is an addressable identifer called inode for each file. Well anyway, I hope I have presented my problem well. Please share your thoughts about how to go about this problem, any code will also be helpful.

Thanks.