How to hide files without renaming them?

SpectrumDT · #1 25th February 2009, 02:06 PM

Hello.

Is there any way to make files hidden without renaming them to ".something"?

I am using KDE 4.2.

Thanks in advance.

Simian Man · #2 25th February 2009, 02:16 PM

Not as far as I know. Unlike Windows, there is no separate "hidden" flag.

RupertPupkin · #3 25th February 2009, 07:49 PM

Hidden files can always be seen anyway. Are there still people who haven't aliased ls to at least 'ls -a'?

sideways · #4 25th February 2009, 08:27 PM

I don't think you can hide arbitrary individual files, but you can hide all files in a given directory by mounting it as root directory for instance. Only root can umount to make the files visible again.

Assuming / is mounted on /dev/sda1:

Code:

mkdir hiddenfiles
touch hiddenfiles/hidden1.doc
su -c 'mount /dev/sda1 hiddenfiles'

Now when you ls hiddenfiles you will just see the root filesystem, hidden1.doc will not be viewable unless root umounts the directory.

Can't see why this would be useful though.

**AdamW** · #5 25th February 2009, 09:52 PM

"Are there still people who haven't aliased ls to at least 'ls -a'? "

Well, er, yes, because I don't always want to see hidden files...

SpectrumDT · #6 25th February 2009, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RupertPupkin

Hidden files can always be seen anyway. Are there still people who haven't aliased ls to at least 'ls -a'?

I have not aliased ls. And anyway, I don't need to hide files from the command line. Hiding them in GUI applications such as Dolphin would be plenty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sideways

I don't think you can hide arbitrary individual files, but you can hide all files in a given directory by mounting it as root directory for instance. Only root can umount to make the files visible again.

Can't see why this would be useful though.

LOL, no, neither can I. But thanks anyway.

sidebrnz · #7 26th February 2009, 12:24 AM

I don't have Dolphin, but in Nautilus, you just click on View and un-check Show Hidden Files.

SpectrumDT · #8 26th February 2009, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidebrnz

I don't have Dolphin, but in Nautilus, you just click on View and un-check Show Hidden Files.

Yes, but I am pretty sure that only hides files beginning with ".".

sidebrnz · #9 26th February 2009, 12:47 AM

Well, yes, of course. But then, in Linux (or any form of Unix, for that matter) a hidden file is a file who's name starts with "." so that's exactly what you'd expect, isn't it?

SpectrumDT · #10 26th February 2009, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sidebrnz

Well, yes, of course. But then, in Linux (or any form of Unix, for that matter) a hidden file is a file who's name starts with "." so that's exactly what you'd expect, isn't it?

And that is exactly my problem.

Not all files can be renamed without a price. For example, LaTeX generates a bunch of auxiliary files (.ind, .idx, .aux, .bib...) that I almost never need to edit manually, so I would like to hide them. But of course, if I rename them LaTeX won't be able to find them and will have to create new ones...