This module is for formatting file modes and permissions the way that ls -l does. For example, if you have a file that is world-readable, but only writable by its owner, you can use file_mode($file) which will return the string '-rw-r--r--'. Beta version 0.50. 20 April 1998. M-J. Dominus (mjd-perl-lsmode@plover.com)