Setting access permissions of a file or directoryΒΆ

chmod()

Set access permissions of a file or directory

SYNTAX

chmod(pathname, mode)

Sets the access permissions for a file or directory. Only the existing owner or the superuser can change permissions.

pathname

The path of the file or directory.

mode

The permissions to be set. The possible values for mode are defined in the standard include file $SCULPTOR/include/files.h, and are as follows:

PERMS_RDOWNER

Give owner read permission

PERMS_WROWNER

Give owner write permission

PERMS_EXOWNER

Give owner execute permission

PERMS_RDGROUP

Give group read permission

PERMS_WRGROUP

Give group write permission

PERMS_EXGROUP

Give group execute permission

PERMS_RDOTHER

Give others read permission

PERMS_WROTHER

Give others write permission

PERMS_EXOTHER

Give others execute permission

These modes can be combined using the | operator. Common combinations of the modes are also defined in $SCULPTOR/include/files.h.

This argument is ignored for directories under MSDOS/Windows, but should be set to a sensible value in case this changes in the future.

The function returns zero if successful; otherwise it returns -1 and assigns the operating system error code to sys.Errno.

UNIX supports all the modes listed above, and has the additional feature that if mode is set to 0 all permissions are removed.

MS-DOS and Windows support only PERMS_RDOWNER and PERMS_WROWNER; all other modes are ignored. Files can always be read under DOS and Windows, so the mode PERMS_RDOWNER is always set, whether or not it is specified.

EXAMPLE

chmod("/sys/errlog", PERMS_RDOTHER | PERMS_EXOTHER)

RELATED TOPICS

File and directory handling functions

access()

fileinfo()