um ... what's with the "." after the directory perms?

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Tue, 2009-03-03 at 10:33 -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> >>>>> "RPJD" == Robert P J Day <rpjday at crashcourse.ca> writes:
> 
> RPJD> drwxr-xr-x. ^ ????
> RPJD>   what's that period?  i've never seen that before.  or have i
> RPJD> just not been paying attention?
> 
> >From "info ls":
> 
>      Following the file mode bits is a single character that specifies
>      whether an alternate access method such as an access control list
>      applies to the file.  When the character following the file mode
>      bits is a space, there is no alternate access method.  When it is
>      a printing character, then there is such a method.
> 
>      GNU `ls' uses a `.' character to indicate a file with an SELinux
>      security context, but no other alternate access method.
> 
>      A file with any other combination of alternate access methods is
>      marked with a `+' character.

I missed that because it's different in the F10 version of ls:

         Following the file mode bits is a single character that
        specifies
     whether an alternate access method such as an access control list
     applies to the file.  When the character following the file mode
     bits is a space, there is no alternate access method.  When it is
     a printing character, then there is such a method.

     For a file with an extended access control list, a `+' character is
     listed.  Basic access control lists are equivalent to the
     permissions listed, and are not considered an alternate access
     method.

poc