Linux chown -R parameter, what does it mean [closed]
"Recursive" implies that the operation will be performed for all files and directories (and all files and directories within any directory). So
chown -R foo /some/pathwould change file owner to foo for all files and directories in /some/path
p.s. You might have even seen the dictionary entry for recursive:
recursive, n: See recursive
In some Linux commands, if you run the command on a folder with -R, the command will operate on all files and folders in that folder's tree. If you run the command on a file, -R has no effect.
The command will operate on given folder, and recursively operates on files and folders within it. It is based on recursion.
For example, you can remove a folder and its contents with
rm -R folder-nameOr you can find all occurrences of a specific string in all files within current folder tree with
grep -R -n the-string . In this example -n is for displaying line numbers.