What Does chmod 777 Mean

chmod 777 I'm trying to change the permissions of temp_dir to 777. Why are these commands not accomplishing that? I'm using Linux by the way.. chmod 777 is considered potentially dangerous because you are giving read, write and execute permission on a filedirectory to everyone.

gangsing 777, To apply chmod 777 recursively to a folder and all its contents, you can use the -R.