Joe Zeff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted [EMAIL PROTECTED], excerpted below, on Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:57:23 -0800:
> On 12/07/2008 David Shochat wrote: >> No, that was a directory (as shown by the initial 'd'). For a >> directory, the 'x' means search access (there is no such thing as >> executing a directory). For an ordinary file, it would mean execute >> access. > > I sit corrected. Live and learn. Thank you. Ummm... I believe it's a matter of terminology. x does normally mean execute access (think Windows *.exe). Directories of course can't be "executed" in the normal sense, but on them, there's a fine distinction between "read" and (as used above) "search" or (as most old Unix/Linux folks will call it anyway) "execute" access. As the book "Running Linux" (O'Reilly publishing, just about the best all around Linux tutorial book you'll find, in its fifth or possibly sixth printing by now) puts it, for anyone but an expert, on directories read and execute access should almost always be set together, because if you want one, you want the other. But, to a Unix/Linux vet, on a directory, "execute" /means/ search access, they're one and the same and will often be used interchangeably. That's just the way the permissions work, and since it has always been that way, it is as I said, really a matter of terminology. -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman _______________________________________________ Pan-users mailing list Pan-users@nongnu.org http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users
