This is really only good for those who run private or dedicated boxes, setting chmod 666 or 777 to your public_html or xcart directory would allow anyone on the shared box to do whatever they like with your files. If this is the case, you can always do something like this after the end of the html catalog generation php file:
Code:
@exec("cp /path/to/xcart/catalog/* /path/to/xcart/");
(not tested)
To make the html_catalog file automatically copy the generated html files over once its done.