tag 80496 notabug
close 80496
stop
On 26/02/2026 11:50, Jakub Kulik via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
Hi, I just managed to reproduce this on Linux (with coreutils 8.32) as well -
not with a symlink, but with a regular file:
mkdir test
touch test/file
chmod 777 test/file
chmod -R -w test
chmod: test/file: new permissions are r-xrwxrwx, not r-xr-xr-x
So maybe it's just there to warn users that who might not expect this result
being affected by the umaks? The 'diagnose_surprises' variable suggests that it
might be it.
Sorry for the noise if that is the case.
Best regards,
Jakub
(and sorry for that Confidential label in the first email - that of course
shouldn’t be there).
From the code:
"Support nonportable uses like "chmod -w", but diagnose
surprises due to umask confusion."
Therefore, closing this.
thanks,
Padraig
