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xattr @ HFS and the junk Mac OS X puts on top of *nix

  1. ls will sometimes yield a '@' in the file permissions string. This means that the file has extended attributes - a new feature of HFS
  2. Its supposed to be cool - you can add metadata to your files - that only Mac OS can understand - not so cool [here]
  3. Use xattr -d to get rid of these things, especially if you didn't put them there in the first place. e.g. xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment IMG_7086.JPG
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  1. AnonymousAugust 11, 2008 at 2:16 PM

    There is nothing wrong with extended attributes. Most Linux file systems got them as well. NTFS got them. OS/2's workplace shell was build around them.

    There serve a true need. They could replace the dreaded file extensions. Comments, Histrory, Display Names, Icons - all sorts of stuff can be handled by EAs

    If only the various os vendors could agree on a single way of using them....

    ReplyDelete

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