File permissions not preserved with copy function?

Folks,

Just noticed this with PHP 5 on RHEL 4 -- started using
the copy function to move some files around and saw that
executable permissions were being lost? The documentation didn't
say anything about that? Is this a bug or a feature?

Thanks.
--
John
__________________________________________________ _________________
John Murtari Software Workshop Inc.
jmurtari@following domain 315.635-1968(x-211) "TheBook.Com" (TM)
http://thebook.com/

John Murtari escribió:
> Just noticed this with PHP 5 on RHEL 4 -- started using
> the copy function to move some files around and saw that
> executable permissions were being lost? The documentation didn't
> say anything about that? Is this a bug or a feature?

It sounds sensible. Copying means reading the original file, creating a
new file and dumping contents in the new file. Let's see an extreme example:

-rw-r--r-- root root /usr/share/foo/splash.png

Obviously, john should not be able to create a new file owned by root.
But he should be able to copy the file if he can read the source and has
permissions in the destination directory.

Check these functions:

umask()
stat()
chmod()
chown()
chgrp()


--
-- http://alvaro.es - Álvaro G. Vicario - Burgos, Spain
-- Mi sitio sobre programación web: http://bits.demogracia.com
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On May 1, 5:43 pm, John Murtari <jmurt...@thebook.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Just noticed this with PHP 5 on RHEL 4 -- started using
> the copy function to move some files around and saw that
> executable permissions were being lost? The documentation didn't
> say anything about that? Is this a bug or a feature?
>
> Thanks.
> --
> John
> __________________________________________________ _________________
> John Murtari Software Workshop Inc.
> jmurtari@following domain 315.635-1968(x-211) "TheBook.Com" (TM)http://thebook.com/

I would think that it's probably a feature, a copy is basically
creating a new file using the contents of the old as contents. If
user B copied a file owned by user A but which he had permission to
read, then if permissions were copied then the result would be another
file owned by user A. User B may have made a copy of the file
belonging to user A in order to make his own modified version, so if
the permissions were identical then he wouldn't be able to edit his
copy either.