Try it with '0777' instead and see what happens.

Okay:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
print 0777, $/;
print 0+'0777', $/;
printf "0%o\n",0777;
printf "0%o\n",'0777';
[download]

produces

511
777
0777
01411
[download]

Okay, so you probably didn't mean for me to type in the single quotes. But I thought this was a subtle and sometimes important point. The string '0777' is silently (no warnings) interpretted as the decimal value 777, not the octal value 0777.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")