extended attribute standardization

[Michael Burschik]

Claes at work wrote:
> On 11/18/06, Michael Burschik <Michael.Burschik at gmx.de> wrote:
>> >
>> What about saving Dublin core metadata as extended attributes?
>
> I think there is some value in doing so, but metadata of that kind
> (closely related to the file wherever it goes) is probably best
> encoded in the file itself, if its fileformat supports it.
>
> For example OpenDocument supports Dublin core, and applications
> writing OpenDocument could set Dublin core attributes as xattrs on the
> file when saving as a service for indexers etc, but since they are
> already persisted in the file, it would be somewhat redundant.
But in order to extract that information, you need to be able to read 
the document format. Since there are too many document formats to 
number, there would be considerable value in duplicating the information 
in a readily readable format, such as extended attributes.
>
> Should we suggest that Dublin core attributes are stored as xattrs in
> a "dc" namespace, if they are available?
>
> Claes
>
Definitely yes.

Cheers

Michael