Access to file metadata from a extension script

["Pedro I. Sanchez" <psanchez colcan biz>]

Hello,

I'm planning on writing a extension script that would ideally make use 
of the emblems and notes associated with a file. My current line of 
thinking is to parse the files under ~/.nautilus/metafiles/ to read the 
metadata. I don't know however what approach to follow for writing 
metadata; I tested manually editing the metadata files but it doesn't work.

So, could you please suggest the best ways to read/write metadata from a 
extension script? My language of preference for this script is Python, 
but C would also be OK.

Thanks,

--
Pedro