On 08/06/07, Tony Arnold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Neil, > > Neil Greenwood wrote: > > > I guess that the reason for the alternative is that some people can't > > cope with the octal notation (or maybe the octal notation was added as > > a shortcut later), but the chmod command is ancient (at least 25 > > years), so I'm not sure. > > My guess is that the octal notation came first and was in the original > Berkeley Unix of so many years ago.
That was my first guess too. I wasn't sure whether it came from BSD or AT&T though. > The text notation also allows you to add and remove permissions, so for > example: u+w will add write permission for the user and leave all the > other bits of the permission as is. There is also - to take it away and > = to set the permission. > > I think the man page to chmod explains it all. Except for the history! Yeah, relative changes (adding and removing), that makes sense, at least if I could remember whether I want to use o or a... :-) My wife says I have a good memory for useless things, but can't remember anything useful, so obviously the text notation of chmod is too useful. Hwyl, Neil. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
