Subject: 24.0.50; Explain in manual(s) Dired/ls permissions listing on Windows

From: "Drew Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:05:02 -0700

emacs -Q
 
I see no explanation in the Emacs manual (for Dired) or in the Elisp
manual (wrt file attributes or somewhere else) about what `ls' (hence
Dired) lists wrt file permissions on Windows.
 
The doc string of `file-attributes' is also pretty silent about this -
it says simply "file modes" (doesn't even use the word "permissions").
 
Some explanation should be given about permissions.  I'm using FAT32,
for instance, and I see `x' for all directories and for no files.
`chmod' with `+x' or `-x' has no effect, and with no message.  No doubt
this is due to Windows not supporting this.  But that should be
explained - documented.
 
In Dired we show some permissions that apparently have no real meaning
on Windows (FAT, at least), and we provide a command (`chmod') which on
Windows does not do everything its doc says.  OK, I'm using Cygwin for
the UNIX `chmod', but regardless, there should be some explanation of
these things in the manual(s).

In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2011-08-22 on 3249CTO
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.5) --no-opt'