umask
Official Description
Displays or sets the file mode creation mask.
Syntax
umask [-S] [mask]
Options
-S produces symbolic output.
Oddities
The one's complement of the umask value is bitwise or'ed with octal 666 (for regular files) or octal 777 (for directories) to determine the permission to set on a new file or directory.
Octal? Isn't this the twenty-first century? It shows the PDP 11 origins of UNIX.
Example
$ umask 0002 $ $ umask -S u=rwx,g=rwx,o=rx $
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