UNIXmerkintä

UNIXmerkintä is a term found in Finnish computing discourse that refers to annotation or labeling practices within UNIX-like systems. It is not an official standard or widely recognized format, and its meaning varies by context. In practice, UNIXmerkintä is used as a generic label for notes that accompany scripts, configurations, and files in UNIX environments rather than as a defined protocol.

Common interpretations include inline documentation in shell scripts and configuration files, where comments or header blocks describe purpose, authorship, and usage. Another interpretation centers on attaching metadata to files through extended attributes (xattrs) on supported filesystems, enabling lightweight annotations that travel with the file. Administrators may also use commit messages and release notes to document changes affecting UNIX components, or employ tagging within workflows to classify resources such as scripts, utilities, or configuration snippets. The exact conventions are project-specific.

Technical considerations: extended attributes are supported by several UNIX-like systems but not uniformly across all filesystems or platforms; portability can be an issue. Tools such as getfattr/setfattr (Linux), xattr (macOS), or backup utilities may be used to read or manipulate such metadata. In many cases, human-readable documentation remains the primary means of UNIXmerkintä.

See also

- Shell script comments

- Documentation headers

- Extended attributes

- Version control annotations

- Man pages