File

File Attributes

Describes file attributes.

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples	Stability
file.accessed	string	Time when the file was last accessed, in ISO 8601 format. [1]	2021-01-01T12:00:00Z
file.attributes	string[]	Array of file attributes. [2]	["readonly", "hidden"]
file.changed	string	Time when the file attributes or metadata was last changed, in ISO 8601 format. [3]	2021-01-01T12:00:00Z
file.created	string	Time when the file was created, in ISO 8601 format. [4]	2021-01-01T12:00:00Z
file.directory	string	Directory where the file is located. It should include the drive letter, when appropriate.	/home/user; C:\Program Files\MyApp
file.extension	string	File extension, excluding the leading dot. [5]	png; gz
file.fork_name	string	Name of the fork. A fork is additional data associated with a filesystem object. [6]	Zone.Identifer
file.group.id	string	Primary Group ID (GID) of the file.	1000
file.group.name	string	Primary group name of the file.	users
file.inode	string	Inode representing the file in the filesystem.	256383
file.mode	string	Mode of the file in octal representation.	0640
file.modified	string	Time when the file content was last modified, in ISO 8601 format.	2021-01-01T12:00:00Z
file.name	string	Name of the file including the extension, without the directory.	example.png
file.owner.id	string	The user ID (UID) or security identifier (SID) of the file owner.	1000
file.owner.name	string	Username of the file owner.	root
file.path	string	Full path to the file, including the file name. It should include the drive letter, when appropriate.	/home/alice/example.png; C:\Program Files\MyApp\myapp.exe
file.size	int	File size in bytes.
file.symbolic_link.target_path	string	Path to the target of a symbolic link. [7]	/usr/bin/python3

[1]: This attribute might not be supported by some file systems — NFS, FAT32, in embedded OS, etc.

[2]: Attributes names depend on the OS or file system. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of values expected for this attribute: archive, compressed, directory, encrypted, execute, hidden, immutable, journaled, read, readonly, symbolic link, system, temporary, write.

[3]: file.changed captures the time when any of the file’s properties or attributes (including the content) are changed, while file.modified captures the timestamp when the file content is modified.

[4]: This attribute might not be supported by some file systems — NFS, FAT32, in embedded OS, etc.

[5]: When the file name has multiple extensions (example.tar.gz), only the last one should be captured (“gz”, not “tar.gz”).

[6]: On Linux, a resource fork is used to store additional data with a filesystem object. A file always has at least one fork for the data portion, and additional forks may exist. On NTFS, this is analogous to an Alternate Data Stream (ADS), and the default data stream for a file is just called $DATA. Zone.Identifier is commonly used by Windows to track contents downloaded from the Internet. An ADS is typically of the form: C:\path\to\filename.extension:some_fork_name, and some_fork_name is the value that should populate fork_name. filename.extension should populate file.name, and extension should populate file.extension. The full path, file.path, will include the fork name.

[7]: This attribute is only applicable to symbolic links.