Re: x bit for dirs: misfeature?

James A Sutherland
2001-11-19T16:00:41Z

On Monday 19 November 2001 4:58 pm, vda wrote:
> On Monday 19 November 2001 14:36, James A Sutherland wrote:

> > $ mkdir test
> > $ echo content > test/file
> > $ chmod a-r test
> > $ ls test
> > ls: test: permission denied
> > $ cat test/file
> > content
> > $ chmod a=r test
> > $ ls test
> > ls: test/file: Permission denied
>
> Hmm... I do actually tested this and last command succeeds
> (shows dir contents). You probably meant cat test/file, not ls...

Nope, ls.

[james@dax p2i]$ ls test
ls: test/file: Permission denied
[james@dax p2i]$ ls -l test
ls: test/file: Permission denied
total 0

(There is something incredibly stupid about the first one: ls is unable to,
er, read the name of the named file?!)

Anyway, as Al Viro has pointed out, R!=X. It's been like that for a very long
time, it's deliberate, not a misfeature, and it's staying like that for the
foreseeable future.

James.