Here's a proposed patch to document the already-existing feature on this point.
>From 2defd3856672bacf5c422e616625f13e3a56d9e9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Paul Eggert <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 08:52:20 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] doc: add chmod examples * doc/coreutils.texi (chmod invocation): Add examples. --- doc/coreutils.texi | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 1 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi index 835c245..da1ecc5 100644 --- a/doc/coreutils.texi +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi @@ -10299,6 +10299,24 @@ Recursively change permissions of directories and their contents. @exitstatus +Examples: + +@smallexample +# Change file permissions of FOO to be world readable +# and user writable, with no other permissions. +chmod 644 foo +chmod a=r,u+w foo + +# Add user and group execute permissions to FOO. +chmod +110 file +chmod ug+x file + +# Set file permissions of DIR and subsidiary files to +# be the umask default, assuming execute permissions for +# directories and for files already executable. +chmod -R a=,+rwX dir +@end smallexample + @node touch invocation @section @command{touch}: Change file timestamps -- 1.7.6.5
