Back Rozšířené atributy souboru Czech Attributs étendus French Attributi estesi Italian 拡張ファイル属性 Japanese 확장 파일 속성 Korean Utvidede filattributter NB Rozszerzone atrybuty pliku Polish Atributos estendidos de arquivo Portuguese 扩展文件属性 Chinese
Extended file attributes are file system features that enable users to associate computer files with metadata not interpreted by the filesystem, whereas regular attributes have a purpose strictly defined by the filesystem (such as permissions or records of creation and modification times). Unlike forks, which can usually be as large as the maximum file size, extended attributes are usually limited in size to a value significantly smaller than the maximum file size. Typical uses include storing the author of a document, the character encoding of a plain-text document, or a checksum, cryptographic hash or digital certificate, and discretionary access control information.
In Unix-like systems, extended attributes are usually abbreviated as xattr.[1]