The resulting file permissions are correct, according to the manpage: If none of [the letters ‘ugoa’] are given, the effect is as if ‘a’ were given, but bits that are set in the umask are not affected.
At first I thought the exit code of 1 was a mistake, but it's not either. From the source: /* If true, diagnose surprises from naive misuses like "chmod -r file". POSIX allows diagnostics here, as portable code is supposed to use "chmod -- -r file". */ static bool diagnose_surprises; Changing the testcase to "chmod -- -x testfile" makes the exit code and warning go away. -- chmod -x fails, apparently due to umask https://launchpad.net/bugs/67583 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
