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  2. How to get the permission mask of a file in Python

How to get the permission mask of a file in Python



On UNIX-like operating systems, new files are created with a default set of permissions. We can restrict or grant any specific or set of permissions by applying a permission mask. Using Python, we can get or set the permission mask for a file.

In this article, we will discuss how to get the permission mask for a file in Python.

Method used –

os.stat () : This method is used to performs stat () system call on the specified path. This method is used to get status of the specified path.

Below is a Python program to get a mask of file permissions.

# Python program to get a mask of file permissions
# of this file

  
# Import the os module

import os

 
# File

filename = "./ file.txt"

 

 
# Now get the file status
# using the os.st method at ()

print ( "Status of% s: " % filename)

status = os.stat (filename)

 
# os.stat () method will return
# stat_result & # 39; object class & # 39; os.stat_result & # 39;
# which will represent
# file status.

print (status)

 
# st_mode attribute
# returned an object & # 39; stat_result & # 39;
# will represent the file type and
# file mode bits (permissions).

print ( "File type and file permission mask:" , status.st_mode)

 

 
# st_mode attribute is an integer value
# but we are interested in an octal value
# for file permission mask

  
# So we will change integer value
# octal value

print ( "File type and file permission mask (in octal):" ,

oct (status.st_mode))

 
# last 3 octal digits
# represents the file permission mask
# and the top indicates the file type
# to get the file permission
# extract the last 3 octal digits
# of status.st_mode

print ( "File permission mask (in octal ): " , oct (status.st_mode) [ - 3 :])

 
# Alternative way

print ( "File permission mask (in octal):" , oct (status.st_mode & amp;  0o777 ))

Exit:

 Status of ./file.txt: os.stat_result (st_mode = 33188, st_ino = 801303, st_dev = 2056, st_nlink = 1, st_uid = 1000, st_gid = 1000, st_size = 409, st_atime = 1561590918, st_mtime = 1561590910, st_ctime = 1561590910) File type and file permission mask: 33188 File type and file permission mask (in octal): 0o100644 File permission mask ( in octal): 644 File permission mask (in octal): 0o644

Below is a short version of the above program —

# Python program to get a mask of file permissions
# of this file

 
# Import the os module

import os

 
# File

filename = "./ file.txt"

 
# Get the file permission mask
# of the specified file

mask = oct (os.stat (filename) .st_mode) [ - 3 :]

 
# Print mask

print ( "File permission mask:" , mask)

Output: 

 File permission mask: 644