Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!mcnc!uvaarpa!mmdf
From: worley@compass.com (Dale Worley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: perl chmod problem
Message-ID: <1991Feb13.220435.24393@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 13 Feb 91 22:04:35 GMT
Sender: mmdf@uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU (Uvaarpa Mail System)
Reply-To: worley@compass.com
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 31


   X-Name: Steven S. Dick

   The program looks something like this:
      print "chmod $perms, @filelist\n";
      chmod $perms, @filelist;
   It prints the correct thing, but doesn't give the file the right permissions.
   If I hard code the permissions, it works:
      chmod 0600, @filelist;
   The print above DOES print 0600.

The problem is that $perms has the string value "0600", but chmod
demands a number for its first argument.  Although 0600 when coded in
a program is interpreted as an octal number, when the string 0600 is
coerced at runtime from string to number, it is interpreted in
decimal.  (Inconsistency?)  Consider the program:

    print "0600"+0, "\n";
    print 0600+0, "\n";

which prints:

    600
    384

You need to find some way to convert an octal string to its numeric
value.

Dale Worley		Compass, Inc.			worley@compass.com
--
True, money _can't_ buy happiness, but it isn't happiness I want.  It's money.