[Help-tar] Hidden directories under AIX

[Jean-Louis CHARTON]

Hi,

I hope this is the right list for the following question.


AIX technical documentation for statx(char* path, struct stat* buffer, int
length, int command) says the following for the command parameter:

STX_HIDDEN
    If the Command parameter specifies the STX_HIDDEN flag and the Path
value is a path name
    that refers to a hidden directory, the statx subroutine returns
information about the
    hidden directory. If the STX_HIDDEN flag is not specified, the statx
subroutine returns
    information about a subdirectory of the hidden directory.

    If the Command parameter specifies the STX_HIDDEN flag and Path refers
to a hidden directory,
    the st_mode field of the returned stat structure indicates that this is
a hidden directory. 


GNU tar source code seems to deal with these directories. For example, in
lib/system.h, one has:

#if STX_HIDDEN && !_LARGE_FILES /* AIX */
# ifdef stat
#  undef stat
# endif
# define stat(file_name, buf) statx (file_name, buf, STATSIZE, STX_HIDDEN)
# ifdef lstat
#  undef lstat
# endif
# define lstat(file_name, buf) statx (file_name, buf, STATSIZE, STX_HIDDEN |
STX_LINK)
#endif


and in src/create.c:

static void
dump_file0 (struct tar_stat_info *st, char const *name, char const *p) {
  ... /* code omitted */

#ifdef S_ISHIDDEN
  if (S_ISHIDDEN (st->stat.st_mode))
    {
      char *new = (char *) alloca (strlen (p) + 2);
      if (new)
  {
    strcpy (new, p);
    strcat (new, "@");
    p = new;
  }
    }
#endif

  ... /* code omitted */

}


However, I can't find any information in the AIX documentation about what
exactly is a hidden directory and how to create such a directory. Neither
mkdir(1) nor mkdir(2) documentations speak about it and I can't find any AIX
system call or command that deal with hidden directory.

Help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Jean-Louis CHARTON