How to change the permission and group-owner of a file at the same time

Question

For changing file permission, I know I could use chmod. For changing group-owner, I could use chgrp. However, if I want to change both permission and owner at the same time, any command I could use on Linux?

For example, there is a file with this permission and owner:

-rw-r--r--+  1 raymondtau  staff    0 May  8 16:38 WantToChangeThisFile

And now I want to change it to:

---x-w--wx+  1 raymondtau  admin    0 May  8 16:38 WantToChangeThisFile

I know I could use this command: chmod 123 WantToChangeThisFile && chgrp admin WantToChangeThisFile, but want to know if there is any neat way to do that.

Solution 1

If what you also want is to copy the file somewhere (like its final destination), you might want to have a look at the install command:

install -m 0777 -o root $sourcefile $destinationfile

Solution 2

There is concept known as "UNIX-way". Each tool should perform one simple function. If one need a more complex function, he can combine smaller tools.

The opposite is the monolitic design when all functionality is aggregated within one huge tool.

If you want to do something complex - just write a script, invoking simple tools.

Solution 3

Using the right tool for the job in *nix is important, but indeed repeating the same path in each chained command looks silly. Instead, you should really use Bash variables, and in smaller scripts, especially make use of $_.

Your command would become:

chmod 123 WantToChangeThisFile && chgrp admin $_

ALT + . does the similar thing of pulling the last used argument in your current shell.

Comments

[jscott]

chown only changes the owners. How does this change the permissions at the same time as OP requested? Note OP's example includes a chmod as well.

[wurtel]

Ah, I thougth he wanted to change 3 things, as he wrote For changing group-owner I thought he meant group and owner.

[Keith]

Here is a script I wrote that combines these tools into one shell function, ch.

[Pierre.Vriens]

i do not get it

[telcoM]

This is unsafe: it will affect all matching files in the specified directory and subdirectories, not just the one file it's pointed to.

[S edwards]

you could at least provide an explanation of how it works and how it's suppose to be use (parameters how much what they are...)

[S edwards]

there's no way it's an answer, what he asked could be achieve with several tools already existent such as rsync and though linux tend to prefers one tool/one function it does mean tools doing multiple stuff aren't existing

[Kondybas]

@Kiwy Some linux tools do not conform unix-way principles and combine different functions of different nature. Like systemd for example.

[S edwards]

@Kondybas "tend to" is the important part of the sentence. exception to the rule does exist. Still your answer to me is a really bad one.

[Konrad Gajewski]

Please do not just paste some code as an answer.

[G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica']

Commenting is not likely to be productive; this is the only thing this user ever posted, and they haven’t even logged in since then.