A feramata on a barline usually indicates the end of a section. It is often seen between sections of a waltz for example. It's usage can be considered similar to "Fine". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermata for example. Usually the next section is played attacca but there may indeed be a (very) short silence between sections.
Comments
A barline has no time, so stretching it seems quite useless?
As a workaround add an invisible breath marking and set its pause value.
In reply to A barline has no time, so… by jeetee
A feramata on a barline usually indicates the end of a section. It is often seen between sections of a waltz for example. It's usage can be considered similar to "Fine". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermata for example. Usually the next section is played attacca but there may indeed be a (very) short silence between sections.