Stat::lsMode generates mode and permission strings that look like the ones generated by the Unix ls -l command. For example, a regular file that is readable by everyone and writable only by its owner has the mode string -rw-r--r--. Stat::lsMode will either examine the file and produce the right mode string for you, or you can pass it the mode that you get back from Perl's stat call. WWW: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Stat-lsMode/