CHGRP(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual CHGRP(1P)PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
chgrp — change the file group ownership
SYNOPSIS
chgrp [−h] group file...
chgrp −R [−H|−L|−P] group file...
DESCRIPTION
The chgrp utility shall set the group ID of the file named by each file
operand to the group ID specified by the group operand.
For each file operand, or, if the −R option is used, each file encoun‐
tered while walking the directory trees specified by the file operands,
the chgrp utility shall perform actions equivalent to the chown() func‐
tion defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, called
with the following arguments:
* The file operand shall be used as the path argument.
* The user ID of the file shall be used as the owner argument.
* The specified group ID shall be used as the group argument.
Unless chgrp is invoked by a process with appropriate privileges, the
set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of a regular file shall be cleared
upon successful completion; the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of
other file types may be cleared.
OPTIONS
The chgrp utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2008, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported by the implementation:
−h For each file operand that names a file of type symbolic
link, chgrp shall attempt to set the group ID of the symbolic
link instead of the file referenced by the symbolic link.
−H If the −R option is specified and a symbolic link referencing
a file of type directory is specified on the command line,
chgrp shall change the group of the directory referenced by
the symbolic link and all files in the file hierarchy below
it.
−L If the −R option is specified and a symbolic link referencing
a file of type directory is specified on the command line or
encountered during the traversal of a file hierarchy, chgrp
shall change the group of the directory referenced by the
symbolic link and all files in the file hierarchy below it.
−P If the −R option is specified and a symbolic link is speci‐
fied on the command line or encountered during the traversal
of a file hierarchy, chgrp shall change the group ID of the
symbolic link. The chgrp utility shall not follow the sym‐
bolic link to any other part of the file hierarchy.
−R Recursively change file group IDs. For each file operand that
names a directory, chgrp shall change the group of the direc‐
tory and all files in the file hierarchy below it. Unless a
−H, −L, or −P option is specified, it is unspecified which of
these options will be used as the default.
Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options −H, −L, and
−P shall not be considered an error. The last option specified shall
determine the behavior of the utility.
OPERANDS
The following operands shall be supported:
group A group name from the group database or a numeric group ID.
Either specifies a group ID to be given to each file named by
one of the file operands. If a numeric group operand exists
in the group database as a group name, the group ID number
associated with that group name is used as the group ID.
file A pathname of a file whose group ID is to be modified.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
chgrp:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization vari‐
ables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions vol‐
ume of POSIX.1‐2008, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
ables for the precedence of internationalization variables
used to determine the values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of
all the other internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard
error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing
of LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
Not used.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 The utility executed successfully and all requested changes were
made.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
Only the owner of a file or the user with appropriate privileges may
change the owner or group of a file.
Some implementations restrict the use of chgrp to a user with appropri‐
ate privileges when the group specified is not the effective group ID
or one of the supplementary group IDs of the calling process.
EXAMPLES
None.
RATIONALE
The System V and BSD versions use different exit status codes. Some
implementations used the exit status as a count of the number of errors
that occurred; this practice is unworkable since it can overflow the
range of valid exit status values. The standard developers chose to
mask these by specifying only 0 and >0 as exit values.
The functionality of chgrp is described substantially through refer‐
ences to chown(). In this way, there is no duplication of effort
required for describing the interactions of permissions, multiple
groups, and so on.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
chmod, chown
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, Chapter 8, Environment
Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2008, chown()COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the Institute of Electri‐
cal and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. (This is
POSIX.1-2008 with the 2013 Technical Corrigendum 1 applied.) In the
event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
at http://www.unix.org/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
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IEEE/The Open Group 2013 CHGRP(1P)
