Perl File Access Permission and Status Information

Handling Files and Directories in Perl – Part 6

Perl Course

Foreword: In this part of the series, I explain how to grant and revoke permissions to files and directories, and I talk about file status information.

By: Chrysanthus Date Published: 27 Aug 2015

Introduction

This is part 6 of my series, Handling Files and Directories in Perl. In this part of the series, I explain how to grant and revoke permissions to files and directories, and I talk about file status information. You should have read the previous parts of the series before coming here, as this is a continuation.

Ownership of a File
Any file (or directory) in a computer should have an owner. An owner of a file is a user of the computer.

File Access Mode
File access mode is of permissions to access a file. The permissions are read, write and execute.

Read
The read permission allows a user to read the file. So he can only see the content of the file, but he cannot change the content.

Write
The write permission allows the user to modify the content of the file.

Execute
If the file is a program (e.g. a Perl script), then the execute permission allows the user to run the file.

The owner of the file may not have all 3 permissions – see why below.

Directory Access Mode
The permissions for a directory are the same as for a file, which are read, write and execute.

Read
This permission to a directory means that the user can list (read) the entries of the directory. The entries are the filenames and directory names. The current directory is typically represented by a dot. The parent directory to the current directory is typically represented by double dots. In order for the user to read, write to, or execute any file in the directory, he still needs the read, write and execute permissions for that particular file.

Write
This permission to a directory means that the user can add or delete files in the directory.

Execute
This permission to a directory is rather redundant. It simply means that the user can list the entries of the directory and he can use the Change Directory (cd) command to reach the directory. It is the write permission for the directory that allows the user to delete and add files.

Note: whether you are dealing with a file or a directory, permissions have to be given to a user.

Changing Ownership of a File
If you install an operating system using the default settings and entering your own username and password, as you install, then you are the super-user (also known as root) for the computer. Only the super-user has the right to change ownership of a file or directory, from one user to another user. A computer can have many users.

As a super-user, you change (give) the ownership of one or more files as follows

chown ($uid, $gid, 'foo', 'bar');

where the first two elements of the list must be the numeric user-id and group-id, in that order. The rest of the elements are filenames in quotes. The chown function returns the number of files successfully changed.

Access Class
A user of a computer is somebody that has the right (username and password) to use the computer. A user is denoted in coding by u. u is an example of an access class.

A user can be a member of a group. A group is a collective number of users with common interest. A group is denoted in coding by g. g is an example of an access class.

Any user of the computer who does not belong to a file owner’s group is denoted by o. o is an example of an access class.

The letter, a for all, can mean u, or g, or o. So you have the following letters (classes): u, g, o, and a.

Access Type
Whether you are dealing with files or directories, there are three types of permissions called access types. They are read, write and execute. In coding, the execute permission is the number, 100; the write permission is the number, 200; but the read permission is the number, 400. 000 means no permission. Now 300 means the write and execute permissions, obtained by adding the permission for execute, which is 100 and the permission for write, which is 200. Now these permissions (numbers) are for the owner (main user) of the file.

For a group, the execute permission is 010; the write permission is 020 and the read permission is 040. 000 means no permission for the group.

For others (the class, o), the execute permission is 001; the write permission is 002 and the read permission is 004. 000 means no permission for others.

Absolute Form of Granting Permissions
It is not only the super-user that can grant permissions to users for your file or directory; you as an ordinary user can grant permissions of your file or directory to another user. Do not confuse between granting permission and changing ownership. Only the supper-user can change ownership of a file; of course, he can also grant permissions.

Assume that you have logged into the computer and you wanted to give yourself read, write, and execute permissions on myfile.pl; give users in your group read and execute permissions; and give others only execute permission. The appropriate number would be calculated as (400+200+100)+(040+000+010)+(000+000+001) to result in the three digits, 751. Note that the permission for the owner (user) has a digit and is followed by 2 zeroes; the permission for the group has one zero in front and another behind; and the permission for others is preceded by 2 zeroes.

To grant the 751 permissions for a file, you would type,

    chmod (0751, "myfile.pl");

To grant permissions for more than one file, it would be something like:

    chmod (0751, "foo", "bar");

where foo and bar are filenames. The first argument is a number preceded by 0 for the permissions. You get the number by addition as illustrated above; it should not be in quotes (because it happens to be an octal number). The rest of the arguments are filenames in quotes. The chmod function returns the number of files successfully changed.

Note: it is the super-user that can change the permissions of a file, which belongs to some other user (and not you). All he has to do is to include the path to the file (or files), as follows:

    chmod (0751, "c:/dirA/dirB/one.txt", "c:/dirA/dirB/two.txt");

To be sure if the mode (permissions) has been successfully changed, he should type a code segment like:

    my $cnt = chmod (0751, "c:/dirA/dirB/one.txt", "c:/dirA/dirB/two.txt");
    print $cnt;

I tried it in my computer for two files and the value of $cnt was 2 (confirming).

The super-user has all the rights in everything in the computer.

Note: granting and changing permissions mean the same thing.

Some other frequently used Modes
Some other frequently used permissions are:
0777 : anyone can do anything (read, write, or execute)
0755  : you can do anything; others can only read and execute
0711 : you can do anything; others can only execute
0644 : you can read and write; others can only read

File Status Information
To get the file status information, you use the stat function as follows:

        ($dev,$ino,$mode,$nlink,$uid,$gid,$rdev,$size,$atime,$mtime,$ctime,$blksize,$blocks) = stat($filename);

The argument to the stat function is the filename in quotes or a variable. There are 13 of the return values. The meanings are as follows:

    0 dev      device number of filesystem
    1 ino      inode number
    2 mode     file mode  (type and permissions)
    3 nlink    number of (hard) links to the file
    4 uid      numeric user ID of file's owner
    5 gid      numeric group ID of file's owner
    6 rdev     the device identifier (special files only)
    7 size     total size of file, in bytes
    8 atime    last access time in seconds since the epoch
    9 mtime    last modify time in seconds since the epoch
    10 ctime    inode change time in seconds since the epoch (*)
    11 blksize    preferred block size for file system I/O
    12 blocks    actual number of blocks allocated

Now, the epoch is a datatime, which is 00:00 January 1, 1970 GMT. The number of seconds for atime, mtime, and ctime can be converted to datetime – see later.

Try the following code, for any file in the working directory, replacing "file" with the name of the file (in quotes):

use strict;

    my ($dev,$ino,$mode,$nlink,$uid,$gid,$rdev,$size, $atime,$mtime,$ctime,$blksize,$blocks) = stat("file");

    print "dev is $dev\n", "ino is $ino\n", "mode is $mode\n", "nlink is $nlink\n", "uid is $uid\n", "gid is $gid\n", "rdev is $rdev\n", "size is $size\n", "atime is $atime\n", "mtime is $mtime\n", "ctime is $ctime\n", "blksize is $blksize\n", "blocks is $blocks\n";

That is it for this part of the series. We take a break here and continue in the next part.

Chrys

Broad Network

Related Articles

Perl File Access Permission and Status Information

Handling Files and Directories in Perl – Part 6

Perl Course

Introduction

Related Links

Comments