Subject: bug#8391: chmod setuid & setguid bits

From: Bruno Haible <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:27:34 +0100

Ondrej Vasik wrote:
> Therefore @ sign was chosen
> based on http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=8391#59 ...

The choice was pretty random:
   "we can choose some otherwise-unused character, such as '@'."

By the same argument one could also choose any of
  '%'
  '^'
  ','
  '.'
  '_'

> However, you are right that = is more intuitive (using exact mode, when
> specified as first character) - but using it for that will either change
> behaviour or confuse people for 'chmod =rwx DIR' usecase, if there are
> special bits on directory.

Then how about using "==" or ":=" to designate the assignment?

  chmod ==755 DIR
or
  chmod :=755 DIR

Both somehow remind assignment. The "==" choice also is similar with
  chmod 00755 DIR

Bruno