Re: suggestion for set-file-modes

[Miles Bader]

Juri Linkov <address@hidden> writes:
> The standard convention when reading a value in the minibuffer is to put
> the default value in the prompt and make it available for editing by M-n.
> When the permission bits are retrieved in such notation from the default
> value then editing them is just like toggling that is convenient.

Soooo, why not convert it to an appropriate "input form" for putting in
the prompt/default ?

E.g., -rwxrwxrw- => "ug=rwx,o=rw"

That has the advantage that such "input forms" are a bit more robust,
because they aren't fixed-width with position-senstive fields.  They're
also somewhat more self-documenting.

[Also, of course, it's more consistent with other programs, none of
which use the "ls forms" for input.]

It shouldn't be very hard to do.

-Miles

-- 
The automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the
living tissue of the city.  Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable;
moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands
of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic.
[James Marston Fitch, New York Times, 1 May 1960]