Hi, I am having a hard time writing a shell script to a text file in vi.

I open a file via:
vi WK3-IA

I write my script, and then switch to command :!wq [enter]

I get a E212 cannot write to file. Obviously I know that there is a permission issue here, but how can I change the permission of a file I cannot save to??? The next obvious question is how to change the permission to a file that cannot be save to?

I tried:
chmod 700 WK3-IA

and it says the stupid file does not exist, which seems pretty obvious since I cannot save to the file after I opened it. Did I miss something here? I realize I am a newbie to Linux, but the logic seems to be missing somewhere here.

I would appreciate any help from the Guru's

Blessings,
Shaun

Hi,

First thing that catches the attention
it should be
to write and quit vi.

Maybe that's causing the problem. Could you try that first?

Kind regards,

Eric

That was a typo. But I tried it to be sure and get the same E212 cannot open file for writing.

Thanks,
Shaun

If you are trying to change the permissions on the file make sure you are in correct directory before you execute the chmod command. Else it will end up giving errors.

From readin the thread I'd say its a permission problem on the directory your trying to write the file to. And if you can't write the file it just does not exists. So you can't change permission on it.
In this case write the file your lacking permissions on to /tmp and fix permission issues later. Or use the shell escape sequence to change permissions

Cheers zhjim

Ok, that worked. However, it does not answer the question on how to change permissions on a vi file.

this is what i did:
vi WK3-IA
script
:wq!
kicks out E212 error

I try to go back to parent directory and type:
chmod 700 WK3-IA
it says that the file does not exist.

Could anyone give me instructions on how to change permissions on an existing file, and a new file so that I can handle it in the future?

Blessings,
Shaun

Can you list the contents of the directory and paste it here and make sure you are changing the permissions from inside the directory where the file is.

Just for the record: It doesn't matter what kind of file you want to change permission on. Files are files under linux. (symlinks are some kind of exepction with permission...)

Your doing the right thing to change the permission of an allready existing file but a new file first has to be created to have it permissions change.

Maybe take a look at the umask binary and thing about group and other permissions. That one looks nice for an overview http://www.zzee.com/solutions/linux-permissions.shtml

Just to quickly sum it up: If you can't write to a directory you can't create the file. so it does not matter what kind of permissions you want to set on a new file.

Like linuxlover.chaitanya said give us a directory listing with
Cheers Zhjim