Add new attribute to an existing file

Question

I am new in Programming. Let's get straight to the subject. I want to add a new attribute to a file using Java. For example, Every file has default attribute like Date modified, Date created etc. I want to add a new attribute to a file, say Rating.

Is it possible? then How can I do that ?

I've spend a lot of time in google, but nothing found helpful.

Maybe thing you are looking for is to create your own file type more than adding new property to existing ones. — itwasntme, Aug 16 '15 at 08:32
@Stanimir I've searched for some file property related method of `File` class, but nothing found. — theapache64, Aug 16 '15 at 08:33
What do you mean exactly? Like append new properties to `.txt` file? — itwasntme, Aug 16 '15 at 08:39
You can't "invent" attributes for files. The attributes that the file already has like modification date and permissions etc. are part of the filesystem where it is saved (e.g. NTFS, FAT32, ext3, etc.), and there is no standard support for adding anything other than the file-system standard one. — RealSkeptic, Aug 16 '15 at 08:39
You should be aware that in the Java world "properties" are something else. — Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen, Aug 16 '15 at 08:47

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 16 '15 at 08:38

The existing attributes are defined and stored in the file system of the underlying operating system. Examples of file systems are NTFS and FAT32.

Some file systems allow for storing additional attributes for a given file, but it is rare, and even if you used one that did, you still need code either inside the runtime library or your own code which could talk to the underlying operating system to get and set the values you want to store.

At your current programming level, I would suggest looking into another solution to what you want to do this for. The typical way to save data is by talking to a database or - for smaller amounts of data - XML.

Thank you for the simplified answer. :) – theapache64 Aug 16 '15 at 08:45 — theapache64, Aug 16 '15 at 08:45

Add new attribute to an existing file

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