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About Extended Attributes (1.2)
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About Extended Attributes
This topic describes how to use extended attributes to store information
about your files and directories. Before reading this section, you should be
familiar with the MS OS/2 file system.
About Extended Attributes
Extended attributes can be thought of as a list of facts attached to a file
or directory. MS OS/2 stores extended attributes separate from the file or
directory so that the attributes do not affect the contents of the file or
directory. An application uses extended attributes to provide a description
of the file or directory, but does not place the description in the file or
directory itself.
Each extended attribute has two parts: a name and a value. The name is a
null-terminated string; applications can choose any convenient name. The
value is corresponding data; it can be text, a bitmap, or any binary data.
The application that creates the extended attributes and the applications
that read the extended attributes must recognize the format and meaning of
the data associated with a given name.
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