I need a reviewer for a change to java.io.File's setReadOnly and setWritable methods so that they don't change the DOS readonly attribute on directories (or folders as Windows calls them). These methods have never worked correctly for directories on Windows because the semantics of this attribute is different for directories (it determines if the directory can be deleted, not whether is is writable, and is used by Windows Explorer to determine if the directory is special, sending it off looking for a hidden Desktop.ini file). Early on in jdk7, the canWrite method was changed to ignore the readonly attribute on directories so changing the set* methods to ignore the attribute restores the status quo. I should say that changing the implementation has some risk. If it does cause problems they we may need to include a compatibility switch. The alternative to ignoring the readonly attribute is to insert a deny rule into the directory's DACL (when on NTFS) but that has a lot of potential to cause problems for end-users. As part of the change proposed here, the SetAccess test has been changed so that it no longer execs "ls -l" and this fixes another bug (6464744) where the test fails if the sticky bit is set. The webrev with the changes is here:
http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~alanb/6728842/webrev/
Thanks, Alan.
