You want to save vi changes to the file myfile with :w!, but vi complains it can not write to the file. Therefore, you want to check the write permissions on the file.
To do this without leaving vi, you type:
A.
:!ls -l myfile
B.
:ls -l myfile
C.
esc :ls -l myfile
D.
:?ls -l myfile
Explanation/Reference:
Use "!command" to issue shell commands from the command prompt of vi