One of the biggest problems with pre-NIO.2 libraries was inefficient work with metadata of files and directories. Authors of NIO.2 library introduce concept of file attribute views to address this problem and also to solve couple of other issues that are dependent on this one. These problems included inability to create files with file attributes initialized at the creation time, inability to copy files with file attributes as well as problematic and inefficient way of handling file attributes. This concept was also adapted on file stores so the work with file system with regard to attributes and metadata feels seamless and consistent.