I have been trying to create a script that changes the user rights to read in the 'other' group across directories. The problem I'm having is that when i execute the script, the permissions of the directories remains the same.

HELP

Lets see what you have done, please post your script, or at least the portion where you try and change directory permissions. In the mean time see man chmod

Thanks for replying, I found out what I was doing incorrectly so I managed to get it sorted.
Cheers

please post your solution in hopes that others with a similar problem can see your solution. also please describe what you were trying to do.

After creating the directories shown below, I wanted to create a script that would show the permission for these directories using the ls -ld command...

mkdir SPADE
cd SPADE
mkdir HARLEM BRONX HACKNEY WHITEHALL BARKING
cd HARLEM
mkdir CANADA SHOELY PALUVA DELOPS

So I created this little script....

echo "This script demonstrates the permission for the directories"
echo""
echo "Permission for the SPADE directory"
cd SPADE
ls -ld
echo ""
echo "Permission for the HARLEM directory"
cd HARLEM
ls -ld
echo ""
echo "Permission for the BRONX directory"
cd ..
cd BRONX
ls -ld
echo ""
echo "Permission for the HACKNEY directory"
cd ..
cd HACKNEY
ls -ld
echo ""
echo "Permission for the WHITEHALL directory"
cd ..
cd WHITEHALL
ls -ld
echo ""
echo "Permission for the BARKING directory"
cd ..
cd BARKING
ls -ld
cd ..
cd HARLEM
echo ""
echo "Permission for the CANADA directory"
cd CANADA
ls -ld
echo""
echo "Permission for the SHOELY directory"
cd ..
cd SHOELY
ls -ld
echo ""
echo "Permission for the PALUVA directory"
cd ..
cd PALUVA
ls -ld
echo""
echo "Permission for the DELOPS directory"
cd ..
cd DELOPS
ls -ld

Can this script be shortened to create the same results??

yes, you could use a for loop and store each directory name in one single array. disregarding specific shell syntax, and the fact that i dont know offhand what shell can actually use arrays (if not you could store each name in a file and have the for (or foreach) loop run through the file), here is an out line of how that would work:

then output whats stored in var_permissions_a and var_permissions_b.

now, please keep in mind that the code i just wrote above is just ment as a prototype, you will have to make it wokr with whatever language your script is in. that stuff up there becomes a mix of at least two different languages and wont run like that on anything

yes! For starters, you can use the -p switch on the mkdir command. mkdir -p This will create all child directories under a parent if they do not already exist. Secondly, you can set the umask for the user that runs the script so that the directories are created with the desired level of permissions. Lastly, use the find command to search the directories for a given permissions level, or for any file that has permissions less than what you desire. Output these files, or change the permissions of these files with the find command.

See the following man pages for syntax:
man chmod
man mkdir
man find