Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!convex!tchrist
From: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: chmod() with a $variable mode
Keywords: chmod
Message-ID: <1991Feb26.190757.4430@convex.com>
Date: 26 Feb 91 19:07:57 GMT
References: <393@camdev.comm.mot.com?>
Sender: tchrist@convex.com (Tom Christiansen)
Reply-To: tchrist@convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
Organization: CONVEX Software Development, Richardson, TX
Lines: 31

From the keyboard of mmuegel@mot.com (Michael S. Muegel):
:I have been trying to get chmod working with a non-numeric mode argument
:(e.g. a scalar variable). I seems that the following:
:
:  chmod ($Mode, $File);
:
:does not work as expected. I think it is using the ASCII numerical values
:or the like. When I do a ls -l I get bits I did not even know existed!

If what's really happening is what I think is happening, consider this:

    print "mode? ";
    chop($Mode = <STDIN>);
    printf "mode is %04o\n", $Mode;
    chmod $Mode, $File;

This may clear some things up.  If your mode is not a literal, like this:

    $Mode = 0644;

then you'll have to octify it:

    $Mode = oct($Mode);


--tom
-- 
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because
 that would also stop you from doing clever things." -- Doug Gwyn

 Tom Christiansen                tchrist@convex.com      convex!tchrist