# Help with permissions

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/help-with-permissions/243033>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [November 2, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/help-with-permissions/243033 "2007-11-02T01:51:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![geoken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@geoken](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/geoken)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 1:51am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/help-with-permissions/243033/1 "2007-11-02T01:51:59Z")

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I have a few questions about permissions. I’m reading a lot online but it isn’t really helping me (I’m thick headed).

I have an swf and it’s sending some data to a php file to be written into an XML file. It works perfectly right now, the XML file is 0666 and the php file is 0644.

Now this is what I don’t understand. What is the definition of executing a file? I thought posting some data to a php file and having it write to various files would be considered executing?

Also, if a file is user writable what does that mean? Can someone remotely write to that file from a php script located on another site.

Basically my questions are;

1. Whats function require execute permissions?
2. Do public write permissions mean people can remotely write to my files?