Ls

Behavior

Unix and Unix-like operating systems maintain the idea of a working directory. When invoked without arguments, ls lists the files in the working directory. If a directory is specified as an argument, the files in that directory are listed; if a file is specified, that file is listed. Multiple directories and files may be specified.

In many Unix-like systems, names starting with a dot (.) are hidden. Examples are ., which refers to the working directory, and .., which refers to its parent directory. Hidden names are not shown by default. With -a, all names, including all hidden names, are shown. Using -A shows all names, including hidden names, except for . and ... File names specified explicitly (for example ls .secret) are always listed.

Without options, ls displays names only. The different implementations have different options, but common options include:

• -l Long format, displaying Unix file types, permissions, number of hard links, owner, group, size, last-modified date-time and name. If the modified date is older than 6 months, the time is replaced with the year. Some implementations add additional flags to permissions. The file type can be one of 8 characters: -, regular file; d, directory; l, symbolic (soft) link; n, network files; s, socket; p, named pipe (FIFO); c, character special file; b, block special file.
• -h Output sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K (kilobytes), 234M (megabytes), 2G (gigabytes)). This option is not part of the POSIX standard, although implemented in several systems, e.g., GNU coreutils in 1997, FreeBSD 4.5 in 2002, and Solaris 9 in 2002.

Additional options controlling how items are displayed include:

• -R Recursively list items in subdirectories.
• -t Sort the list by modification time (default sort is alphabetically).
• -u Sort the list by last access time.
• -c Sort the list by last attribute (status) change time.
• -r Reverse the order, for example most recent time last.
• --full-time Show times down to the second and millisecond instead of just the minute.
• -1 One entry per line.
• -m Stream format; list items across the page, separated by commas.
• -g Include group but not owner.
• -o Include owner but not group (when combined with -g both group and owner are suppressed).
• -d Show information about a directory or symbolic link, rather than the contents of a directory or the link's target.
• -F Append a "/" to directory names and a "*" to executable files.

It may be possible to highlight different types of items with different colors. This is an area where implementations differ:

• GNU ls uses the --color option; it checks the Unix file type, the file permissions and the file extension and uses its own database to control colors maintained using dircolors.
• FreeBSD ls uses the -G option; it checks only the Unix file type and file permissions and uses the termcap database

When the option to use color to indicate item types is selected, the output might look like:

-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 26650 Dec 20 11:16 <span style="color:dodgerblue " id="mwpA">audio.ogg</span> brw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 64 Jan 27 05:52 <span style="color:chocolate " id="mwpQ">bd-block-device</span> crw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 255 Jan 26 13:57 <span style="color:chocolate " id="mwpg">cd-character-device</span> -rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 290 Jan 26 14:08 <span style="color:magenta " id="mwpw">image.png</span> drwxrwxr-x 2 tsmitt nregion 48 Jan 26 11:28 <span style="color:blue " id="mwqA">di-directory</span> -rwxrwxr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 29 Jan 26 14:03 <span style="color:green " id="mwqQ">ex-executable</span> -rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 09:39 <span style="color:dimgray " id="mwqg">fi-regular-file</span> lrwxrwxrwx 1 tsmitt nregion 3 Jan 26 11:44 <span style="color:dodgerblue " id="mwqw">ln-soft-link</span> -> <span style="color:blue" id="mwrA">dir</span> lrwxrwxrwx 1 tsmitt nregion 15 Dec 20 10:57 <span style="color:lightcoral " id="mwrQ">or-orphan-link</span> -> <span style="color:white;background:lightcoral" id="mwrg">mi-missing-link</span> drwxr-xrwx 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 10:58 <span style="color:blue;background:lime " id="mwrw">ow-other-writeable-dir</span> prw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Jan 26 11:50 <span style="color:darkgoldenrod " id="mwsA">pi-pipe</span> -rwxr-sr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 11:05 <span style="color:black;background:yellow" id="mwsQ">sg-setgid</span> srw-rw-rw- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Jan 26 12:00 <span style="color:magenta " id="mwsg">so-socket</span> drwxr-xr-t 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 10:58 <span style="color:white;background:blue " id="mwsw">st-sticky-dir</span> -rwsr-xr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 11:09 <span style="color:white;background:red " id="mwtA">su-setuid</span> -rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 10240 Dec 20 11:12 <span style="color:red " id="mwtQ">compressed.gz</span> drwxrwxrwt 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 11:10 <span style="color:black;background:lime " id="mwtg">tw-sticky-other-writeable-dir</span>

Sample usage

The following example demonstrates the output of the command:

<span id="mwuw"></span><span class="gp" id="mwvA">$ </span>ls<span class="w" id="mwvQ"> </span>-l <span class="go" id="mwvg">drwxr--r-- 1 fjones editors 4096 Mar 2 12:52 drafts</span> <span class="go" id="mwvw">-rw-r--r-- 3 fjones editors 30405 Mar 2 12:52 edition-32</span> <span class="go" id="mwwA">-r-xr-xr-x 1 fjones bookkeepers 8460 Jan 16 2022 edit.sh</span>

Each line shows the d (directory) or - (file) indicator, Unix file permission notation, number of hard links (1 or 3), the file's owner, the file's group, the file size, the modification date/time, and the file name. In the working directory, the owner fjones has a directory named drafts, a regular file named edition-32, and an executable named edit.sh which is "old", i.e. modified more than 6 months ago as indicated by the display of the year.

<span id="mwzA"></span><span class="go" id="mwzQ">┌─────────── file (not a directory)</span> <span class="go" id="mwzg">|┌─────────── read-write (no execution) permissions for the owner</span> <span class="go" id="mwzw">|│ ┌───────── read-only permissions for the group</span> <span class="go" id="mw0A">|│ │ ┌─────── read-only permissions for others</span> <span class="go" id="mw0Q">|│ │ │ ┌── number of hard links</span> <span class="go" id="mw0g">|│ │ │ │ ┌── owner</span> <span class="go" id="mw0w">|│ │ │ │ │ ┌── user group</span> <span class="go" id="mw1A">|│ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── file size in bytes</span> <span class="go" id="mw1Q">|│ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── last modified on</span> <span class="go" id="mw1g">|│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── filename</span> <span class="go" id="mw1w">-rw-r--r-- 3 fjones editors 30405 Mar 2 12:52 edition-32</span>