27.2.2 Copying Existing Permissions

You can base a file’s permissions on its existing permissions. To do this, instead of using a series of ‘r’, ‘w’, or ‘x’ letters after the operator, you use the letter ‘u’, ‘g’, or ‘o’. For example, the mode

o+g

adds the permissions for users who are in a file’s group to the permissions that other users have for the file. Thus, if the file started out as mode 664 (‘rw-rw-r--’), the above mode would change it to mode 666 (‘rw-rw-rw-’). If the file had started out as mode 741 (‘rwxr----x’), the above mode would change it to mode 745 (‘rwxr--r-x’). The ‘-’ and ‘=’ operations work analogously.