chown [-Rf] [owner][:group] file ...
 DESCRIPTION
 Chown sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.

The options are as follows:

-R
Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
in the files instead of just the files themselves.

-f
Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify
the exit status to reflect such failures.

The
 owner and
 group operands are both optional, but at least one must be specified; if
the group operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'')
character.

The
 owner should be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
user name.
The
 group should be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
group name.

Only the super-user may change the owner of a file in order to
simplify accounting procedures and to prevent the circumvention
of system security.

The owner and group of symbolic links are themselves changed instead
of the file to which the link points.

The
 chown utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
 COMPATIBILITY
Previous versions of the
 chown utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name.
This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and
group names may contain the dot character.
 "SEE ALSO"
chgrp(1), find(1), chown(2)