Python mkdir giving me wrong permissions

Question

I'm trying to create a folder and create a file within it. Whenever i create that folder (via Python), it creates a folder that gives me no permissions at all and read-only mode. When i try to create the file i get an IOError. ``` Error: <type 'exceptions.IOError'> ``` I tried creating (and searching) for a description of all other modes (besides 0770). Can anyone give me light? What are the other mode codes?

Accepted Answer

After you create the folder you can set the permissions with `os.chmod`

The mod is written in base 8, if you convert it to binary it would be

```
000 111 111 000
    rwx rwx rwx
```

The first `rwx` is for owner, the second is for the group and the third is for world

r=read,w=write,x=execute

The permissions you see most often are 7 read/write/execute - you need execute for directories to see the contents 6 read/write 4 readonly

When you use `os.chmod` it makes most sense to use octal notation so

```
os.chmod('myfile',0o666)  # read/write by everyone
os.chmod('myfile',0o644)  # read/write by me, readable for everone else
```

Remember I said you usually want directories to be "executable" so you can see the contents.

```
os.chmod('mydir',0o777)  # read/write by everyone
os.chmod('mydir',0o755)  # read/write by me, readable for everone else
```

Note: The syntax of `0o777` is for Python 2.6 and 3+. otherwise for the 2 series it is `0777`. 2.6 accepts either syntax so the one you choose will depend on whether you want to be forward or backward compatible.

Python mkdir giving me wrong permissions

Solution

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