Pete's Linux Advent Calendar 2007

The 13th day

File Metadata with extended attributes

Metadata of files is a nice feature. Your (ext3) filesystem has to be mounted with the option user_xattr. With getfattr(1) you can view the the attributes and with setfattr(1) you can set them. Here is a little script that you can integrate into your filemanager to set a comment to a selected file:

#!/bin/bash

# editattributes - edit extended file attribute "user.comment"

file="$1"
oldcomment=$(getfattr -n user.comment --only-values -- "${file}" 2>/dev/null)
comment=$(kdialog --inputbox "Enter comment for \"${file##*/}\"" "$oldcomment")
retval=$?
if [ $retval -ne 0 ]; then
    exit 0
fi
setfattr -n user.comment -v "$comment" -- "$file"

As I use KDE I also use kdialog. To add the action to konqueror create a .desktop file in ~/.kde/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus/xattributes.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Actions=EditAttributes
ServiceTypes=all/allfiles
[Desktop Action EditAttributes]
Exec=$HOME/bin/editattributes %u
Name=Edit extended attributes

then you wil find the Action "Edit extended attributes" under the right mouse button Actions menu. I am sure you will find more advanced usage for this.

Pete's Linux Advent Calendar 2007

Comments? send mail to pkruse@arcor.de