CHGRP(1)

📦 version 0.12.0, in arch rolling

💅 CHGRP(1) — the General Commands Manual, but make it make sense

okay bestie so this is chgrp from the General Commands Manual and honestly? she's a whole vibe. she changes groups. that's the job. let me walk you through it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

chgrp — change the group of each FILE to GROUP. that's it. that's the whole personality. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

chgrp [OPTION]... GROUP FILE...
chgrp [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...

two ways in, bestie: either you tell her the group, or you point at a file and go "that one, do what that one's doing". 🦋

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Change the group of each FILE to GROUP. literally the entire plot. no plot twist. no cap. ✨

👑 OPTIONS 👑

so many little switches, and every single one of them is here, i would never hide a flag from you:

  • --help — print help information. she'll explain herself. 💅
  • -c, --changes — like verbose, but she only reports when an actual change is made. lowkey the quieter sibling of -v.
  • -f, --silent, --quiet — suppress most error messages. she's choosing peace today 🕊️
  • -v, --verbose — output a diagnostic for every file processed. every. single. one. she will not stop talking. iconic.
  • --preserve-root — fail to operate recursively on /. this is the seatbelt, bestie, do not unbuckle it 🔥
  • --no-preserve-root — do not treat / specially. and that is the default, so don't come for me when it goes feral 😭
  • --reference <RFILE> — use RFILE's group rather than specifying GROUP values. copy her group inspo straight from the source 🎀
  • --from <GROUP> — change the group only if its current group matches GROUP. conditional slay.
  • -R, --recursive — operate on files and directories recursively. it's giving depth-first main character energy 🌈
  • -H — if a command line argument is a symbolic link to a directory, traverse it.
  • -L — traverse every symbolic link to a directory encountered. full send. 🦋
  • -P — do not traverse any symbolic links. this one's the default, so she's the baseline bestie.
  • --dereference — affect the referent of each symbolic link (this is the default), rather than the symbolic link itself.
  • -h, --no-dereference — affect symbolic links instead of any referenced file. useful only on systems that can change the ownership of a symlink. read that again and don't be surprised when it's mild on your machine 🙈
  • -V, --version — print version. she'll tell you exactly who she is. 👑
okay small vibe check on the -H / -L / -P trio — those control symlink traversal when you're going recursive. -P is the default. --dereference is the default too. defaults are doing a lot of heavy lifting in this manpage and they deserve respect. ⭐

⭐ VERSION ⭐

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

and that's the whole page, bestie! 🍓 before you go — huge shoutout to the source, v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-17, filed under CHGRP(1). go change some groups, stay hydrated, and don't recursively touch / unless you truly mean it 💜🧚‍♀️

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