What's the best way to have sccs save execution bits?

[Arthur David Olson]

When we receive a package such as the X Window System Version 11 Release 3,
we first sccs everything in sight before making our many changes.
One problem we have is with shell scripts that have execute bits turned on--
when you "get" such files later, the resulting file does not have execute bits
turned on, since sccs doesn't try to remember them.  When some of the X
Makefiles try to execute the scripts, things don't go well.

I want to change the sccs programs so that execute bits will be remembered.
One way to do this is to save the mode of the file being saved (call it
"beingsaved") in a newly-invented field of the header of its sccs'ed version 
("s.beingsaved").  Another way is to copy the execute bits of "beingsaved" to
"s.beingsaved" as a way of remembering them.  The second approach doesn't
require changes to the format of the sccs'ed version of a file, but does leave
you with files marked executable that aren't really executable.

If you have insights into how best to proceed, I'd appreciate hearing from you
by electronic mail.  Thanks for your help.
-- 
	Arthur David Olson    ado at ncifcrf.gov    ADO is a trademark of Ampex.