Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: auspex!guy@uunet.uu.net (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: possible chgrp(1) bug
Message-ID: <729@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 29 Dec 88 21:54:47 GMT
References: <2318@kalliope.rice.edu>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
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Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: 16 Dec 88 20:27:15 GMT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 77, message 7 of 14


 >This shows that chmod changes the protection of the file (as it should),
 >but chgrp changes the group of the link (shouldn't it change the file's
 >group?).

This dates back to 4.2BSD.  The "chmod" system call follows links, but the
"chown" system call doesn't.  I remember hearing various reasons why this
was done, but I don't remember them sufficiently well to reconstruct them.