XATTR(1)

✨ XATTR ✨

okay bestie so this is the xattr manual page — a whole little command for setting or listing extended attributes on a file or directory. yes. that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

xattr [ -lz ] filename [ filename ... ]
xattr -p [ -lz ] attr_name filename [ filename ... ]
xattr -w [ -z ] attr_name attr_value filename [ filename ... ]
xattr -d attr_name filename [ filename ... ]

four forms, four moods, all iconic 👑

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So this page documents the xattr command briefly — that's literally what it says, not me being lazy, okay? 😭

Anyway here's the tea, form by form:

• The first form lists the names of all xattrs on the given file(s).
• The second form (-p) prints the value of the xattr attr_name.
• The third form (-w) sets the value of the xattr attr_name to attr_value.
• The fourth form (-d) deletes the xattr attr_name.

that's it. that's the whole flow. no cap ✨

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

A summary of options is included below. bestie we LOVE a summary 🫶

• -h — Show summary of options. tiny help menu moment.
• -l — Print long format (attr_name: attr_value) when listing xattrs. so you get the receipts, not just the names 💖
• -z — Compress or decompress (if compressed) attribute value in zip format. little zip-zip situation 🧚

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

here's what it actually looks like in the wild, copy-paste core:

xattr -w user.mykey myvalue myfile

xattr -p user.mykey myfile

xattr -d user.mykey myfile

set it, peek at it, delete it. the whole arc in three commands 😭✨

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

The Python module "xattr" — yeah there's a whole Python side to this too, iykyk 🐍

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

xattr was written by Bob Ippolito <bob@redivi.com>. legend behaviour, honestly.

This manual page was written by Federico Ceratto, for the Debian project (and may be used by others). queen shit 👑

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okay and the cute lil sign-off at the bottom: this page lives in the General Commands Manual, it's version/datestamp May 8, 2010, and it goes by XATTR(1). periodt 💅🌈

go forth and set some attributes, bestie 🦋