3.2 Symbolic Modes

Symbolic modes represent changes to files' permissions as operations on single-character symbols. They allow you to modify either all or selected parts of files' permissions, optionally based on their previous values, and perhaps on the current umask as well (see section 3.2.6 The Umask and Protection).

The format of symbolic modes is:

[ugoa...][[+-=][rwxXstugo...]...][,...]

The following sections describe the operators and other details of symbolic modes.

3.2.1 Setting Permissions		Basic operations on permissions.
3.2.2 Copying Existing Permissions		Copying existing permissions.
3.2.3 Changing Special Permissions		Special permissions.
3.2.4 Conditional Executability		Conditionally affecting executability.
3.2.5 Making Multiple Changes		Making multiple changes.
3.2.6 The Umask and Protection		The effect of the umask.