File attributes in GIO consist of a list of key-value pairs.

Keys are strings that contain a key namespace and a key name, separated by a colon, e.g. "namespace:keyname". Namespaces are included to sort key-value pairs by namespaces for relevance. Keys can be retrived using wildcards, e.g. "standard::*" will return all of the keys in the "standard" namespace.

Values are stored within the list in FileAttributeValue structures. Values can store different types, listed in the enum FileAttributeType. Upon creation of a FileAttributeValue, the type will be set to FileAttributeTypeInvalid.

The list of possible attributes for a filesystem (pointed to by a File) is availible as a FileAttributeInfoList. This list is queryable by key names as indicated earlier.

Classes that implement FileIface will create a FileAttributeInfoList and install default keys and values for their given file system, architecture, and other possible implementation details (e.g., on a UNIX system, a file attribute key will be registered for the user id for a given file).