Re: chmod 0755 behaves like chmod 755

[Evan Hunt]

> I believe that on some implementatiions, both commands clear the bit;
> POSIX allows this too.

And that's the mandated behavior with files, isn't it?

It seems to me that, unless POSIX disallows it--and you just said it
doesn't--the principle of least surprise calls for chmod to behave the
same way with both files and directories.

> Sorry, but there is no consensus here, and portable scripts have to take
> this into account.

Clearly true, and will remain true whatever coreutils does, so let's
do the most sensible thing.

Evan Hunt