Checking file owner permissions
You can use stat
to get the file permissions, and parse them with another command to get the character you want.
stat -c %A someFile
Returns something like:
-rw-rw-r--
EDIT: Here you go:
stat -c %A someFile | sed 's/...\(.\).\+/\1/'
Returns either -
or x
if the owner has execute.
EDIT 2: For completion's sake:
if [ `stat -c %A someFile | sed 's/...\(.\).\+/\1/'` == "x" ] then echo "Owner has execute permission!"fi
EDIT 3: If you prefer numerical permissions:
stat -c %a /path/to/a/file
will output 600 or 700 or whatever 3 digit base-8 number.