diff --git a/tools/perf/Documentation/perf.data-directory-format.txt b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf.data-directory-format.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..4bf08908178d1666a4c20131a505ce71a34173fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/perf/Documentation/perf.data-directory-format.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+perf.data directory format
+
+DISCLAIMER This is not ABI yet and is subject to possible change
+           in following versions of perf. We will remove this
+           disclaimer once the directory format soaks in.
+
+
+This document describes the on-disk perf.data directory format.
+
+The layout is described by HEADER_DIR_FORMAT feature.
+Currently it holds only version number (0):
+
+  HEADER_DIR_FORMAT = 24
+
+  struct {
+     uint64_t version;
+  }
+
+The current only version value 0 means that:
+  - there is a single perf.data file named 'data' within the directory.
+  e.g.
+
+    $ tree -ps perf.data
+    perf.data
+    └── [-rw-------       25912]  data
+
+Future versions are expected to describe different data files
+layout according to special needs.
diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-record.c b/tools/perf/builtin-record.c
index 2fb83aabbef56fff7d660e3f85eedb8e996c3856..e402459752e7d9592222c77aeaed471f8585a5f4 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-record.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-record.c
@@ -537,7 +537,7 @@ static int record__process_auxtrace(struct perf_tool *tool,
 	size_t padding;
 	u8 pad[8] = {0};
 
-	if (!perf_data__is_pipe(data) && !perf_data__is_dir(data)) {
+	if (!perf_data__is_pipe(data) && perf_data__is_single_file(data)) {
 		off_t file_offset;
 		int fd = perf_data__fd(data);
 		int err;
diff --git a/tools/perf/util/data.c b/tools/perf/util/data.c
index df173f0bf65412791cf5f7f999d58e40a66054a9..964ea101dba63c582468524962a16fb4fdc17511 100644
--- a/tools/perf/util/data.c
+++ b/tools/perf/util/data.c
@@ -76,6 +76,13 @@ int perf_data__open_dir(struct perf_data *data)
 	DIR *dir;
 	int nr = 0;
 
+	/*
+	 * Directory containing a single regular perf data file which is already
+	 * open, means there is nothing more to do here.
+	 */
+	if (perf_data__is_single_file(data))
+		return 0;
+
 	if (WARN_ON(!data->is_dir))
 		return -EINVAL;
 
@@ -406,7 +413,7 @@ unsigned long perf_data__size(struct perf_data *data)
 	u64 size = data->file.size;
 	int i;
 
-	if (!data->is_dir)
+	if (perf_data__is_single_file(data))
 		return size;
 
 	for (i = 0; i < data->dir.nr; i++) {
diff --git a/tools/perf/util/data.h b/tools/perf/util/data.h
index 218fe9a168010009b851177ae6c92857ebff579d..f68815f7e4281279f3fa65b76fd03389f69a8cd6 100644
--- a/tools/perf/util/data.h
+++ b/tools/perf/util/data.h
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ enum perf_data_mode {
 };
 
 enum perf_dir_version {
+	PERF_DIR_SINGLE_FILE	= 0,
 	PERF_DIR_VERSION	= 1,
 };
 
@@ -54,6 +55,11 @@ static inline bool perf_data__is_dir(struct perf_data *data)
 	return data->is_dir;
 }
 
+static inline bool perf_data__is_single_file(struct perf_data *data)
+{
+	return data->dir.version == PERF_DIR_SINGLE_FILE;
+}
+
 static inline int perf_data__fd(struct perf_data *data)
 {
 	return data->file.fd;