Re: [xml-dev] An XML language for describing file attributes of adirecto

[Liam Quin <liam@w3.org>]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 05:37:46PM -0800, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
> I'm looking for pointers to an XML-based language for describing file  
> attributes of a directory tree. Peter Murray-Rust suggested I ask this 
> list.
>
> I have an application in mind which will record directory listings of a 
> file system in text form. That is, it should say something like:
>
>     File name is: abc.txt
>     Last modification date is: 2009-12-31T01:23
>     Read-only attribute is: True
>     Hidden attribute is: False

Note that the information available varies widely between different
sorts of file system and different operating environments - e.g.
Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS (like CP/M) have a "hidden" attribute;
on Unix the convention is that names starting with a dot are not
shown by default. In general for archival purposes you may well
want as much information as is available -- at least what the
POSIX stat() function gives you and maybe also eextended attributes.

Maybe it'd be worth having some sort of micro-spec for this to go
with XQuery and XSLT 2 and XPath 2, e.g. via expath.org/exquery.org.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/ * http://www.fromoldbooks.org/