A Missing(?) attribute?

[Kilmatead]

My dissertation was on the unfortunate art of 19th century warfare and the poor sods who died because their commanders were out to lunch!  I sleep with one eye open, thank you muchly, and only take orders that are written down.

What is also interesting, is that in testing that extended attributes thing I made, the indexing service can have a conniption fit when you set the -I- attribute directly (instead of through the menus) - all sorts of good old thrashing kicks in if you hit the jackpot by "touching" a key directory (in essence it forces a rebuild - but unpredictably).  However, it won't keep me awake at night (last Saturday notwithstanding).

[Kilmatead]

Can you explain to me why these two files in the same folder have it different?

Code: Select all

Name	Size	Modified	Attributes
trialpay_wall.htm	11.0 kB	22/07/2010 17:25:42	---A-----I-
testalert.htm	886 B	28/05/2009 17:24:20	---A-------

sure enough, WDS cannot find text in the one called I, but why did it index the one HTM and not the other?

Actually, now that enough time has passed (159 years is not really that long in the scheme of things) for the minutia of this to leave our brains, the answer to your question above is simple: The .htm file with the 'I' attribute has been specifically targeted NOT to be indexed - and thus, unsurprisingly, it's not indexed!

You are still sitting there thinking that the 'I' attribute is a dichotomic indicator of either "This object has been indexed" or "no, this object has not been indexed".  That is not true.  It is a directive to the indexing service to skip that object, regardless of what the containing folder's aspect may be.  So just because the containing folder is marked "Yes, please index my arse!", it just so happens that the 'trialpay_wall.htm' is a mole on the left buttock cheek saying "don't look at me", while the one on the right cheek is only too happy for the world to know its charms.

So, were you to rephrase your question to "How did the first file come to get marked that way?", obviously it was done by whatever created/saved the .htm in the first place, in much the same way as when x2 creates a folder it does not have the Archive attribute set - but when x2 pastes a screenshot PNG (right-clicking from PrnScr) x2 itself creates a file with the -A- attribute set as "on".  Whose inconsistent decision was that?  Probably the dude who wrote the programme.  

So, obviously, if you want the first object to be indexed, you have to specifically tell the indexing service not to skip it via the Advanced Attributes setting in the object's Properties.