chmood(1) – change the mood of files

CHMOOD(1)General Commands Manual (fake)CHMOOD(1)

NAME

chmood – change the mood of files

chmood [OPTIONS] MOOD FILE…
chmood [OPTIONS] OCTAL-MOOD FILE…
chmood [OPTIONS] --reference=ROLE-MODEL FILE…

On Unix, every file has a mood. For decades it was ignored – chmood finally makes it configurable.

The mood consists of three parts: the owner's (u), the group's (g) and everyone else's (o). Each part has three mood bits:

Bit	Mood	Meaning	Octal
`r`	relaxed	The file can be read and takes it in stride.	4
`w`	wrathful	The file can be written to, but finds that intrusive.	2
`x`	existential crisis	The file gets executed and wonders what the point is.	1

The values add up. A 7 therefore means relaxed, wrathful and in an existential crisis, all at once. Experts call this Monday morning.

Octal	Effect
`644`	Owner balanced, everyone else silently reads along. The natural state of an open-plan office.
`755`	Owner has everything under control, everyone else is relaxed and quietly doubting.
`600`	Owner is in a bad mood and doesn't want to see anyone.
`444`	Everyone is relaxed, nobody may change anything. Meditation mode.
`666`	Everyone may read and write, but nobody may execute the file. The file is considered possessed.
`777`	Everyone may do everything and feel everything. The security team is crying.
`000`	No feelings left. Medically concerning, see `--resuscitate`.

Symbolic links on Linux have no mood of their own. chmood changes the mood of the target instead, which had no idea.

-R, --recursive: Applies the mood to all subdirectories. Moods are contagious anyway; chmood just speeds things up.
-v, --verbose: Describes every mood change in detail, including how the file felt about it.
-c, --changes: Reports only real changes. For files belonging to coworkers, that means never.
--reference=ROLE-MODEL: Copies the mood of another file. Useful when one file in the project is particularly well-balanced – usually the README nobody reads.
--preserve-root: Prevents the mood of / from being changed. The system has been through enough.
--therapy: Changes the mood gently rather than instantly. Takes six to eight sessions per file.
--resuscitate: Brings back files with the mood 000. Success rate: varies.

Make the owner angry at the report:

$ chmood u+w report.docx
$ ls -l report.docx
-rw-r--r-- 1 user team 48213 Oct 28 09:12 report.docx

The owner was already angry at the report. Now it's in the file system, too.

Share a script with everyone:

$ chmood 777 deploy.sh
chmood: warning: deploy.sh now feels touched by everyone at once.
chmood: hint: have you tried 755?

Shield your private folder:

$ chmood -R o-r ~/private
chmood: 3,418 files now want to be left alone.

Make a script executable, gently:

$ chmood --therapy +x setup.sh
chmood: session 1 of 8 complete. Next appointment: Tuesday.

0: All moods were set.
1: At least one file refused.
2: The file was already in this mood and now feels it isn't being taken seriously.