Patent ID: 7958166

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing files, comprising: associating a range of values with a time attribute of a file, wherein the range of values is outside of an ordinary range of the time attribute in accordance with a file system associated with the file, wherein the time attribute is a standard file attribute of the file system; associating a management action with the range of values of the time attribute, wherein the management action includes an action that is unrelated to an ordinary action associated with the time attribute of the file in accordance with the file system, where in the ordinary action includes setting a time value of the time attribute; in response to a request subsequently received from a client via a standard call of the file system to set the time attribute of the file to a predetermined value, determining whether the predetermined value is within the range of values and is outside of the ordinary range of the time attribute of the file; and performing the management action if the predetermined value is within the range of values and is outside of the ordinary range of the attribute of the file, including designating the file as a write-once-read-many (WORM) file, and setting a WORM retention period of the WORM file based on the predetermined value, wherein the designating the file and setting the WORM retention period are performed in response to the request as a single request from the client.