What does the period after -rw-rw-r-- mean?

[James McDonald]

Tried to google but not putting in the right terms. So here is a question

-rw-rw-r--. <== what does this period mean in the listing below?


$ls -al
total 68
drwx------   2 jm jm  4096 2010-09-21 20:02 .
drwx------  33 jm jm  4096 2010-09-12 18:34 ..
-rw-rw-r--.  1 jm jm     8 2010-09-21 20:10 announcements.aux
-rw-rw-r--.  1 jm jm  5641 2010-07-13 07:06 announcements.log
-rw-rw-r--.  1 jm jm 33070 2010-07-13 07:06 announcements.pdf
-rwxrwxrwx   1 jm jm  1167 2010-07-13 07:06 announcements.tex
-rwxrwxrwx   1 jm jm  1129 2009-12-23 08:14 announcements.tex~
-rwxrwxrwx   1 jm jm   359 2009-12-23 07:31 mylatex.tex~


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