UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I'm new at this whole Unix thing, but definately learning (lots of fun)...

and I was wondering - how do you make a file read-only with vi? I don't mean how do you load up vi in read-only mode, but how do you save a file (or flag a file, or whatever) in vi to read-only? How do you make it not read-only after it has been set to read-only? Thanks a lot!

See the man page for vi


view Start in read-only mode. You will be protected from writing the files. Can also be done with the "-R" argument.

-R Read-only mode. The 'readonly' option will be set. You can still edit the buffer, but will be prevented from accidently overwriting a file. If you do want to overwrite a file, add an exclamation mark to the Ex command, as in ":w!". The 'readonly' option can be reset with ":set noro". See ":help 'readonly'".

You could set your umask before editing the file.

$ umask 266

That would leave any file you edit as read-only to owner. You'll need to switch back immediately after editing the first file, as strange behavior can result from such.

$ umask 022

Cheers,

Keith