*** file permisions: $VAR1 = bless( {
                 'uid' => 500,
                 'flags' => 15,
                 'mtime' => 1203350526,
                 'atime' => 1203350526,
                 'perm' => 33092,
                 'gid' => 500,
                 'size' => '0'
               }, 'Net::SFTP::Attributes' );


##</code><code>##

 my $attrs = Net::SFTP::Attributes->new(Stat => [ stat "test.file" ]);
        print "*** file permisions: " . Dumper($attrs) ."\n";
        $attrs->perm( [ '0777' ] ); # what format is this?
        $sftp->do_setstat('test.file', $attrs);
        $attrs = Net::SFTP::Attributes->new(Stat => [ stat "test.file" ]);
        print "*** file permisions: " . ($attrs->{'perm'}) ."\n";