Every file has following attributes:
Ø  owner's user ID ( 16 bit integer )
Ø  owner's group ID ( 16 bit integer )
Ø  File access mode word 
'r w x -r w x- r w x'  
(user permission-group permission-others permission)
r-read, w-write, x-execute
To change the access mode, we use chmod(filename,mode). 
To change mode of myfile to 'rw-rw-r--' (ie. read, write permission for user - read,write permission for group - only read permission for others)  we give the args as:
chmod 0664 myfile
Each operation is represented by discrete values  
'r' is 4 
'w' is 2 
'x' is 1
Therefore, for 'rw' the value is 6(4+2).
Example 2: 
To change mode of myfile to 'rwxr--r--' we give the args as:
chmod 0744 myfile