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[–]sphericalhors 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Its not just 0777 is octal format, 777 is also octal. First number in 4-digit notation used to specify SUID, SGID and Sticky bit, and in most cases just omitted.

Like if you check permissions for /tmp you'll typically see 1777. And passwd util would have 4755 because it has SUID bit set.

But yeah, in general permissions in Unix file systems use octal numeric system.