Elektra  0.8.21
elektra-metadata(7) -- metadata

Metadata is data about data. In earlier versions of Elektra, there has been a limited number of metadata entries suited for filesys. For filesys this was efficient, but it was of limited use for every other backend. This situation has now changed fundamentally by introducing arbitrary metadata.

Metadata has different purposes:

Usage

Every key-value pair can have an arbitrary number of metakeys with metavalues attached. Identical to keys, metakeys are unique, but only within its key they are attached to.

To create a metakey, use kdb-setmeta(1), to get metadata kdb-getmeta(1).

The preferred way to use metadata is to set all metadata in the spec namespace and let the spec plugin copy the metadata to all other namespaces.