| Bill Jonas on Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:53:59 -0400 |
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On Thu, Jul 11, 2002 at 03:40:08PM -0400, Greg Lopp wrote: > Don't bother to take them away first and just do > "chmod u=rx targetname" instead. That leaves group and other permissions unchanged. > Confessed ignorance : What are the limitations of the > "chmod [OPTION]... MODE[,MODE]... FILE..." notation? Clunkiness. Compare: $ chmod a=r,u+w test $ chmod 644 test These are equivalent from a perspective that asks, "What is the outcome?" However, with the former you more than double the amount of characters in the permission string as well as use odd, hard-to-reach, (relatively) out-of-the-way characters. (The former was the most compact symbolic way to represent it that I could think of. Please let me know if there's a shorter way to express that.) Clearly, you don't *need* to use octal permission values; everything that can be done with an octal permission string can be done with a symbolic permission string. Many people find it easier and faster to use octal; some don't. That's fine. Also, bear in mind that you don't need to choose between one and the other. I primarily use octal since I usually want to set the permissions *to* a specific value, all three sets at once, but I *occasionally* use the symbolic method as well when I want to simply modify the permissions, either one set, or more than one all the same way. I've been doing that less and less, though. -- Bill Jonas * bill@billjonas.com * http://www.billjonas.com/ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin Attachment:
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