Feature request: hide hidden files

[sganis]

Is there a feature to hide hidden files? I am using sshfs cygwin to mount a remote linux storage, and I need to hide files that start with a dot. If not, any suggestion of what function to modify would be helpful. Thanks.

[Nikratio]

Thanks for the idea! Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a "hidden file" as far as FUSE is concerned. Therefore, sshfs can't provide anything like it.

[sganis]

How can windows explorer hide those files?
Wouldnt be good to have a —show-hidden=no option in sshfs ?
Windows users are not familiar with linux hidden files, windows does not have full support either, it cannot rename them from explorer, for example.

[Nikratio]

Interesting idea. That would lead to other weird behavior though, like not being able to delete an apparently empty directory (because it contains files that sshfs hides).

[sganis]

True, but it shouldn’t be a big issue. Deleting a folder means deleting folder and content these days, as it is in windows, and I have never used rmdir in linux, I always use rm -r. Another reason for this feature, almost all mounting technologies in windows have some option to hide hidden linux files. Yet another, many tools in linux have this option by default, such as /bin/ls.

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On 16 Sep 2018, at 2:36 PM, Nikolaus Rath ***@***.***> wrote: Interesting idea. That would lead to other weird behavior though, like not being able to delete an apparently empty directory (because it contains files that sshfs hides). — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

[Nikratio]

That's actually exactly the problem :-). If you execute rm -r, then the rm commands asks the filesystem for a list of files, deletes each of them, and then attempts to delete the directory. Windows Explorer does the same thing. This will fail if the file system hides certain files, because it cannot know whether it's asked for a list of files to be displayed to the user, or a list of files to be removed by a recursive removal operation.

[sganis]

The filesystem could know about hidden files, only the sshfs readdir operacion could filter them, what do you think?

[Nikratio]

Sorry, that doesn't make sense. SSHFS is the filesystem, and if readdir() filters out the files, then rm -r will fail because it can't see the files.