[NTLUG:Discuss] Listing file permissions in "chmod format"

[Leroy Tennison]

The issue I'm facing is that I'm writing a script which will be used by 
others on hosts where I have no access or knowledge of the specifics.  I 
know I need to modify a file which I have seen is read-only (444) in one 
case.  What I want to do is:

"capture" the current permissions in a form usable by chmod
chmod a+w {file}
cat {file} | sed (script) > {newfile}
mv {file} {file}.{date}
mv {newfile} {file}
chmod (saved permissions) {file}

"man ls" didn't provide any other program in the "See also" category.  
Searching the web produces all kinds of references to ls and a reference 
to a Perl script.  I really don't want to use Perl because, again, I 
don't know much about the hosts the script will run on and don't want to 
assume that Perl is universally available.

Any ideas or solutions would be appreciated.