CHFLAGS(1)

💅 CHFLAGS(1) — the chflags glow-up (General Commands Manual)

okay so bestie, welcome to chflags — the little utility that changes the file flags of your files, fr fr. like, you hand it a flags operand and a list of file ... and it just goes and does the thing. slay ✨

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

chflags [-fhvx] [-R [-H | -L | -P]] flags file ...

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The chflags utility modifies the file flags of the listed files as specified by the flags operand. that's it, that's the whole vibe 💅

The options are as follows — buckle up, there's a bunch:

• -f — do not display a diagnostic message if chflags could not modify the flags for file, and do not modify the exit status to reflect such failures. like, it just moves on, no drama 🙈
• -H — if the -R option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed and hence unaffected by the command. (symbolic links encountered during traversal are not followed.) iykyk 🎀
• -h — if the file is a symbolic link, change the file flags of the link itself rather than the file to which it points. main character energy for the link 🔗
• -L — if the -R option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. all of them. periodt ✨
• -P — if the -R option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. this is the default. lowkey the chill one 🌸
• -R — change the file flags of the file hierarchies rooted in the files, instead of just the files themselves. beware of unintentionally matching the “..” hard link to the parent directory when using wildcards like “.*”. 🫶 this one will vibe-check you back, ngl
• -v — cause chflags to be verbose, showing filenames as the flags are modified. if the -v option is specified more than once, the old and new flags of the file will also be printed, in octal notation. double -v = extra detail, we love to see it 🔥
• -x — do not cross mount points. stay in your lane, bestie 🚧

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🧚 the flags themselves (the fun part) 🧚

The flags are specified as an octal number or a comma separated list of keywords. the following keywords are currently defined:

• arch, archived — set the archived flag (super-user only) 👑
• nodump — set the nodump flag (owner or super-user only)
• opaque — set the opaque flag (owner or super-user only) [directory is opaque when viewed through a union mount]
• sappnd, sappend — set the system append-only flag (super-user only) 👑
• schg, schange, simmutable — set the system immutable flag (super-user only) 👑
• uappnd, uappend — set the user append-only flag (owner or super-user only)
• uchg, uchange, uimmutable — set the user immutable flag (owner or super-user only)
• hidden — set the hidden flag [hide item from GUI] 🫣

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🌈 the "no" trick 🌈

Putting the letters “no” before a keyword — or removing the letters “no” from a keyword — causes the flag to be cleared. for example:

• nouchg — clear the user immutable flag (owner or super-user only)
• dump — clear the nodump flag (owner or super-user only)

literally the same word, opposite vibes. 💀

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⚠️ important caveats, pls read ⚠️

Unless the -H or -L options are given, chflags on a symbolic link always succeeds and has no effect. 💀 like, it does nothing but it's not a fail. iconic but useless.

The -H, -L and -P options are ignored unless the -R option is specified. also, these options override each other and the command's actions are determined by the last one specified. so the last one wins, always — no tiebreakers 🎀

You can use "ls -lO" to see the flags of existing files. ⭐

If chflags receives a SIGINFO signal (see the status argument for stty(1)), then the current filename as well as the old and new flags are displayed. cute lil progress update 🦋

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🌸 EXIT STATUS 🌸

The chflags utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. simple as that 🫶

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

Recursively clear all flags on files and directories contained within the foobar directory hierarchy:

chflags -R 0 foobar

the 0 is doing so much work here and nobody's talking about it 💅

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🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

ls(1), chflags(2), stat(2), fts(3), symlink(7)

go read them, bestie, they're all part of the lore 📚

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

The chflags command first appeared in 4.4BSD. an icon, a legend, a pioneer 👑

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💀 BUGS 💀

Only a limited number of utilities are chflags aware. some of these tools include ls(1), cp(1), find(1), install(1), dump(8), and restore(8). in particular, a tool which is not currently chflags aware is the pax(1) utility. 😭 so if pax ignores your flags, that's not you, that's pax.

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okay that's the whole page, bestie — this manual page came to you from Debian, dated June 12, 2018. go forth and flag responsibly 🫶✨💖