Question

What is execute permission?

(a) permission to execute the file

(b) permission to delete the file

(c) permission to rename the file

(d) permission to search or navigate through the directory

The question was posed to me during an online interview.

My doubt stems from File Ownership and Permissions topic in section Basic File Attributes of Unix

Answer 1

Right answer is (d) permission to search or navigate through the directory

Best explanation: Executing a directory does not make any sense, execute permission simply means that a user can “pass through” the directory while searching for subdirectories. When we use pathname with any command we should have execute permission for each of the directories involved in the complete pathname. For example,