Extended attributes (EAs) are a special &os2; feature and allow for storing additional information with a file-system object (file or folder) on disk. The information is not part of the object's data, but is stored together with the object in the file system.

As opposed to the legacy file attribute bits, extended attributes are a list of keywords with values, either in text or binary format.

Applications can define their own keywords for their own use. Some keywords, however, are defined by the system and used, for example, by the Workplace Shell. Those are called "standard extended attributes", and their keywords start with a leading dot. See "Standard Extended Attributes" for more information.

To view the extended attributes that are currently set for a file-system object, open its properties notebook and switch to the second "File" page.

Remarks:

  1. The total size of the EAs of a file-system object is limited to 64 KB per object.

  2. The file systems that ship with &os2; (HPFS, JFS, and FAT) all support extended attributes, but this may not be the case with third-party file systems or network drives on a remote server. EAs may be lost if you copy files between file systems that do not support them.

  3. If you use a volume under both &os2; and another operating system that does not recognize extended attributes, the other operating system might destroy &os2;'s EAs if you modify files. This is most likely with the FAT file system, which is understood by almost every operating system.

  4. To learn about the total space that is consumed for EAs on a drive, select "Check disk" from a drive's popup menu.
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