[NBLUG/talk] The Linux "invisible" files

[Jeremy Turner]

On Sun, 2003-08-17 at 18:20, Todd Cary wrote:
> When I create a directory within the "home" directory that gets used by 
> Samba and FTP, there are quite a few "." files or Linux "invisible" 
> files.  Is there documentation on the meaning of each of these?

I don't think I've seen any documentation officially of hidden files.  A
lot of applications store their per-user config info in
.<package_name>rc files or .<package_name> directories.  If you do a
plain ls, they won't clutter up your display, but to get the full view,
do ls -a (list all files). 

> Also, when I go to a site managed by an ISP, I again notice quite a few 
> "." dot files.  Is there a standard applied here?

I'm not quite sure what you're meaning here by "a site managed by an
ISP", but same principles are applied.  The dot files are normally not
regularly displayed, but you can still get to them or use them as a
normal file.

BTW, I believe Samba can be configured to hide or show the hidden files,
depending on your configuration.

Jeremy
-- 
Jeremy Turner <jeremy at linuxwebguy.com>
The LinuxWebGuy
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