Ls
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ls - List a directory's content
basic usage
ls
will the contents of the current directory in alphabetical order.
colors
ls is one of the most basic tools and will undoubtedly be the most commonly used. It sorts a directory alphabetically and prints them in the following colors:
- a black or white entry, depending on your terminal settings, is a regular file
- a dark blue entry is a directory, you can change to that directory with cd
- a bright green entry is a symbolic link
- a a purple entry is a hard link
to disable color formatting use
ls --color=never
ls, by default, does not show hidden files and directories. To enable the viewing of hidden folders and files you have several options.
ls -a
ls -A
- the -a flag which can also be put in as
--allwill list all the files in a folder, including the special folders ./ and ../
- the -A flag which can also be put in as
--almost-allwill not list the special folders ./ and ../
more listing information
ls only shows the file or directory name, to make it show more information use the following option.
ls -l
- the -l flag shows a lot of information on every file and folder.
The
ll
command does the same thing. For more information on a specific file, use the stat command.
sort by modification time
ls -t
output data size in human readable format
To output the data size in human readable format, e.g. kB, MB instead of bytes, which can be rather long.
ls -h
combine switches
You can combine switches, aka flags or options. For instance,
ls -lth
will display the contents in a descriptive format, with file sizes in human readable format, and sorted accorded to their modification time.
additional options
This is meant to be an introduction and does not cover all of the command's data. For more information read
ls --help
or the manpage
