How can I retrieve the permissions of a file in a certain format?

Question

I can change the permissions of a file by:

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

How can I retrieve the permissions of a file in the same format which is 600?

Related: [Convert ls -l output format to chmod format](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/71585/convert-ls-l-output-format-to-chmod-format) — steeldriver, Jul 21 '16 at 15:21

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 21 '16 at 15:19

3

stat(1) can show many file associated attributes by specifying special format strings to it's -c option. In your case, use stat -c '%a' ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to receive the same file mode in octal, 600.

See it's manual page for a full list of supported format modifiers.

answered Jul 21 '16 at 15:19

This is Linux-specific, mind you. *BSD systems also have a `stat(1)`, but with different options. – Satō Katsura Jul 21 '16 at 15:58

How can I retrieve the permissions of a file in a certain format?

1 Answers1