The .HISTORY extended attribute (EA) contains the modification history for a file object, indicating the author of the file and all subsequent changes. Each entry is separate field in a multi-value field and consists of be ASCII characters only.

The name of this EA consists of the string ".HISTORY". The value of this EA contains the modification history for a file object and can be multi-valued, with each action entry described in a separate field.

Each entry in the .HISTORY field has the following format:

    PERSON  ACTION(created, changed or printed)  DATE

For example, the following .HISTORY extended attribute contains two entries:

    EAT_MVMT 0000 0002
             EAT_ASCII 0017 Joe    Created  2/10/88
             EAT_ASCII 0017 Harry  Changed  2/11/88

This extended attribute can potentially become quite large. To avoid unwanted growth, an application can let the user decide when an entry should be added to this extended attribute. For example, there are some cases when it is important to note when a document is printed. However, it is probably unnecessary to note it every time the file is printed.