Linux chown -R parameter, what does it mean

Question

The explanation is:

"-R, --recursive

operate on files and directories recursively"

What does "recursive" mean here?

Solution 1

"Recursive" implies that the operation will be performed for all files and directories (and all files and directories within any directory). So

chown -R foo /some/path

would change file owner to foo for all files and directories in /some/path

p.s. You might have even seen the dictionary entry for recursive:

recursive, n: See recursive

Solution 2

In some Linux commands, if you run the command on a folder with -R, the command will operate on all files and folders in that folder's tree. If you run the command on a file, -R has no effect.

The command will operate on given folder, and recursively operates on files and folders within it. It is based on recursion.

For example, you can remove a folder and its contents with

rm -R folder-name

Or you can find all occurrences of a specific string in all files within current folder tree with

grep -R -n the-string . 

In this example -n is for displaying line numbers.

Solution 3

It means apply it to sub-directories and their contents, that is, recurse chown() when a directory is encountered.

Comments

[Mohammad Javad Naderi]

Search recursion in Google, and it says: Did you mean: recursion

[devnull]

See, I already told you!

[Edward]

@Random Google... genious

[NathanQ]

don't forget about user groups chown -R user:group /some/path