Re: Read-only error

On 13/07/2026 17:18, Left Right via Python-list wrote:

> Both users and administrators understand permissions as a reference to
> ownership. Owning X gives you permissions to do with X as you please,
> including deleting it.

I disagree. Ownership and access are entirely different things.
I can own a file and restrict my access to read-only, or not
execute it etc.
I can also access files that I do not own, either as part of
a group, or globally or part of an ACL.

Ownership does not automatically permit you to do anything
to a file. And you may be able to do anything to a file you
don't own. They are entirely different concepts.

> the file *mode* rather than *ownership* is unhelpful. Users don't
> expect file mode to affect permissions. 

On the contrary mode is at least as important and I would
certainly expect that if I set the mode to read-only that
will affect the permissions.

> Bottom line: I think that having a FileReadOnly exception is a good
> idea because it more precisely reports the problem and gives users a
> direction for fixing it, whereas reporting permissions error doesn't.

I don't disagree with this however. The more specific an error
the better.


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Alan G
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