Blog available for sell
This blog is available for sale. Please 'contact us' if interested.
Advertise with us
script   0   17802
Python program to convert Linux file permissions from octal number to rwx string

The permissions of a file in a Linux system are split into three sets of three permissions: read, write, and execute for the owner, group, and others. Each of the three values can be expressed as an octal number summing each permission, with 4 correspondings to read, 2 to write, and 1 to execute. Or it can be written with a string using the letters r, w, and x or - when the permission is not granted.

For example, 640 is read/write for the owner, read for the group, and no permissions for the others; converted to a string, it would be: "rw-r-----"

Similarly, 755 is read/write/execute for the owner, and read/execute for group and others; converted to a string, it would be: "rwxr-xr-x"


Summary:

PermissionOctalPermission String
Owner: Read and Write
Group: Read
Other: None
640rw-r-----
Owner: Read, Write and Execute
Group: Read and Execute
Other: Read and Execute
755rwxr-xr-x



Python Code to convert from octal to string representation of Linux file permissions:

def octal_to_string(octal):
    result = ""
    value_letters = [(4,"r"),(2,"w"),(1,"x")]
    # Iterate over each of the digits in octal
    for digit in [int(n) for n in str(octal)]:
        # Check for each of the permissions values
        for value, letter in value_letters:
            if digit >= value:
                result += letter
                digit -= value
            else:
                result += '-'
    return result
    
print(octal_to_string(755)) # Should be rwxr-xr-x
print(octal_to_string(644)) # Should be rw-r--r--
print(octal_to_string(750)) # Should be rwxr-x---
print(octal_to_string(600)) # Should be rw-------


Output:

When executed the program will print below output.

rana@brahma:Python-Scripts$ python3 permission.py 
rwxr-xr-x
rw-r--r--
rwxr-x---
rw-------

The code is available on GitHub.

Photo by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash
script   0   17802
0 comments on 'Python Program To Convert Linux File Permissions From Octal Number To Rwx String'

Related Articles:
Python Script 17: Setting bing image of the day as desktop wallpaper
Python Script to Set bing image of the day as desktop wallpaper, Automating the desktop wallpaper change to bing image of day using python code, changing desktop wallpaper using python, downloading an image using python code, updating the desktop wallpaper daily using python...
Python Script 16: Generating word cloud image of a text using python
word cloud python, generating a word cloud of a text using python code, python code to generate a word cloud image of a text. Using word frequencies to generate a word cloud image using a python script...
Python Script 13: Generating ascii code from Image
Generating ascii art from image, converting colored image to ascii code, python script to convert image to ascii code, python code to generate the ascii image from jpg image....
Uploading a file to FTP server using Python
Uploading files to FTP server using Python, Python script to connect to ftp server, Python code to login to FTP server and upload file, How to connect to FTP server using python code, ftplib in python, Get server file listing using ftplib in python...
DigitalOcean Referral Badge

© 2024-2025 Python Circle   Contact   Sponsor   Archive   Sitemap