VERITAS File System 4.1 Administrator's Guide

Application Interface
Named Data Streams
Chapter 4 85
Named Data Streams
Named data streams associate multiple data streams with a file. Access to the named data
stream can be done through a file descriptor using the named data stream library functions.
Applications can open the named data stream to obtain a file descriptor and perform read(),
write(), and mmap() operations using the file descriptor. These system calls would work as
though they are operating on a regular file. The named data streams of a file are stored in a
hidden named data stream directory inode associated with the file. The hidden directory inode
for the file can be accessed only through the named data stream application programming
interface.
NOTE Named data streams are also known as named attributes.