Basic File Commands

ls Command Examples

The ls command in Linux is one of the most used commands. But most people don't utilize its full potential. Check out the basics as well as advanced ls command examples in Linux.

The ls command is one of the first commands we learn when discovering the shell. And after that, whatever is your skill level, it will remain one of the most often used.

Despite that popularity, we rarely go beyond the -l, -d and -a options. It is unfortunate since a typical ls implementation has tens of options available! I, therefore, propose you to follow me in my search for the ls command hidden gems.

Sample file hierarchy we use in this ls command guide

Before getting to the heart of the matter, we need a little bit of preparation: it would be hard to study the ls command without some directory to work on. So that you will be able to try on your computer the commands given in this article, here is how to create the sample file hierarchy I will use in all my examples. Just copy-paste that list of commands to your terminal, and you will be ready:

mkdir ls
cd ls
# Create a hidden file:
echo You can not see me > .hidden
# Create a couple of 2MiB files:
dd if=/dev/zero of=a bs=1M count=2
dd if=/dev/zero of=b bs=1M seek=1 count=1
# Create few sub-directories
mkdir -p dir/subdir dir/subdir2
# Create a bunch of empty files
touch c dir/{d,e,f} dir/subdir/{g,h,i} dir/subdir2/{j,k,l}
# Create few links (hard and symbolic)
ln  dir/e hardlink-to-file
ln -s dir/f symlink-to-file
ln -s dir/subdir symlink-to-subdir

If you have any trouble with these commands, don’t hesitate to use the comment section to ask for some help. Assuming now everything is in order, it is time to dive into our main topic.

The well-known use cases of ls command

As every journey starts with a first step, let’s review first the very basic use cases for the ls command. Of course, if you consider yourself as an expert, feel free to jump immediately to the more advanced sections. But if you prefer staying with me for now, great: you might learn a thing or two!

`<no option>`: the default behavior

The ls command gives information about each file-like objects pointed by the paths given on the command line. When used without any option:

the only information displayed is the name of the file-like object pointed by the path;
if that path points to a directory (or symbolic link to a directory), the ls command also lists the content of that directory;
if several entries are displayed, they are sorted in the alphabetical order of their filename.

Finally, when no path is given on the command line, the ls commands assumes ./–that is the current directory.

Let see now all those rules in action:

# display the content of the current directory
sh:~/ls$ ls ./
a  c    e  hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file
b  dir    f  link-to-subdir    symlink-to-subdir

# without any option, `ls` is equivalent
# to `ls ./`
sh:~/ls$ ls
a  c    e  hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file
b  dir    f  link-to-subdir    symlink-to-subdir

# entries are sorted alphabetically
# ("dir/f" starts with a "d" so it is before "e")
sh:~/ls$ ls c b e dir/f a
a  b  c  dir/f    e

# when a command line argument is a directory
# (or a symbolic link to a directory)
# displays its content
sh:~/ls$ ls a b c link-to-subdir dir
a  b  c

dir:
d  e  f  subdir  subdir2

link-to-subdir:
g  h  i

`-d`: do not list directory content

With the -d option, ls no longer displays the content of the directory given on the command line but instead will treat directory entries just like file entries. Let’s compare:

# Default behavior: display the content of the `dir` directory
sh:~/ls$  ls a dir b
a  b

dir:
d  e  f  subdir  subdir2

# `-d` option: directories are handled like files
sh:~/ls$  ls -d a dir b
a  b  dir

When using the -d option alone, there isn’t much difference between ls and a plain echo command:

# In both case, the `*` glob pattern is expanded by
# the shell, which also takes care of
# sorting entries in the alphabetical order
sh:~/ls$  ls -d *
a  b  c  dir  hardlink-to-file    symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir

sh:~/ls$  echo *
a b c dir hardlink-to-file symlink-to-file symlink-to-subdir

But the -d option becomes more useful when associated with another option to display extra information, like when using the -l flag we will see now.

`-l`: the long format option

In the ls options popularity contest, the -l (lowercase ell letter) option would probably be the winner. It’s so useful that many systems offer an ll alias for ls -l (or ls -l<something>)

The -l stands for the long format. With that option, the ls command will display each entry on its own line containing the following information: * file mode * number of links * owner name * group name * number of bytes in the file * date and time * pathname

Also, with the -l option, ls will no longer follow symbolic links. So, it will display the information (file mode, number of links and so on) about the link itself, and not about its destination. For the same reason, the ls command will not display the content of directories pointed by symbolic links:

# Default behavior: displays only the filename and
# follows symbolic links:
sh:~/ls$  ls *
a  b  c  e  f  hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file

dir:
d  e  f  subdir  subdir2

link-to-subdir:
g  h  i

symlink-to-subdir:
g  h  i

# `-l` option: displays extended informations and
# no longer follows symbolic links
sh:~/ls$  ls -l *
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 19 22:18 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 19 22:18 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 19 22:18 c
-rw-r--r-- 3 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 19 22:18 e
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain       5 Sep 19 12:09 f -> dir/f
-rw-r--r-- 3 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 19 22:18 hardlink-to-file
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain      10 Sep 19 12:09 link-to-subdir -> dir/subdir
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain       5 Sep 19 22:18 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain      10 Sep 19 22:18 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir

dir:
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain    0 Sep 19 22:18 d
-rw-r--r-- 3 sylvain sylvain    0 Sep 19 22:18 e
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain    0 Sep 19 22:18 f
drwxr-xr-x 2 sylvain sylvain 4096 Sep 19 12:09 subdir
drwxr-xr-x 2 sylvain sylvain 4096 Sep 19 12:09 subdir2

To conclude this section, I let you examine the output we obtain by combining both the -l and -d options:

sh:~/ls$  ls -ld *
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 19 22:18 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 19 22:18 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 19 22:18 c
drwxr-xr-x 4 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 19 12:09 dir
-rw-r--r-- 3 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 19 22:18 e
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain       5 Sep 19 12:09 f -> dir/f
-rw-r--r-- 3 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 19 22:18 hardlink-to-file
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain      10 Sep 19 12:09 link-to-subdir -> dir/subdir
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain       5 Sep 19 22:18 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain      10 Sep 19 22:18 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir

`-a`: display all files

With the -a option, ls includes hidden files when displaying the content of a directory. But what is a hidden file?

By convention, on Unix-like systems, a file whose name is starting by a dot is considered as hidden. In addition, each directory also contains two special, normally hidden, entries: . and ..

In each directory:

the . entry points to the directory itself. That kind of self-reference may seem curious. But it is sometimes useful, a bit like having your own phone number into your smartphone repertory.
the .. entry points to the parent directory. Since the file hierarchy on Unix-like systems is strictly organized as a tree, each directory has one and only one parent. Except the root directory / maybe? Well, not really: the parent of the root directory is … the root directory itself.

# Default behavior: do not display hidden entries
# (including . and ..)
sh:~/ls$  ls
a  c    e  hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file
b  dir    f  link-to-subdir    symlink-to-subdir

# `-a` option: show hidden files and directories
sh:~/ls$  ls -a
.   a  c    e  hardlink-to-file  link-to-subdir   symlink-to-subdir
..  b  dir  f  .hidden         symlink-to-file

The useful options of ls command

After having reviewed the well known -l, -d and -a options, let’s turn our attention on a couple of lesser-known options I find particularly useful.

`-s`: display allocated size

You may remember the -l option displayed the number of bytes in the file. The -s option displays the allocated size in blocks. What’s a block? Well, a group of bytes whose size is implementation dependent. It is usually 512 bytes on BSD and 1024 bytes on Linux.

Why would I bother with size in blocks when I already have access to the size in bytes? Well, the -s options display the allocated size. Not the logical size of the file. Those may be two completely different things for sparse files. Sparse files are files that contain “holes”. When read, those holes behave like normal file blocks containing only zeros. But they take virtually no space on the disk. We can use the dd command with the seek option to create sparse files as I did it for the b file in my sample hierarchy:

sh:~/ls$ ls -ls a b
2052 -rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 19 22:18 a
1028 -rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 19 22:18 b

As you can see, both my a and b files appear to be two mebibytes long. But the b file being sparse, it takes only 1028 blocks on the disk (roughly one mebibyte).

`-h` display human-readable sizes

With the -h option, ls will display file sizes using unit suffixes to make them more user-friendly. This option is only meaningful when used in combination with the -l option (Linux, BSD) or -s (Linux):

sh:~/ls$ ls -lsh a b
2.1M -rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2.0M Sep 19 22:18 a
1.1M -rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2.0M Sep 19 22:18 b

openbsd-6.3$ ls -lsh a b
4128 -rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain   2.0M Sep 19 23:49 a
2112 -rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain   2.0M Sep 19 23:49 b

You may have noticed sizes are displayed using powers of 1024 units, where K stands for 2^10=1024 bytes, M for 1024^2=1048576 bytes and so on. Worth mentioning here the ls implementation provided as part of the GNU Coreutils has an extra --si options to use power 1000 instead of powers of 1024:

sh:~/ls$ ls -lsh --si a b
2.2M -rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2.1M Sep 19 22:18 a
1.1M -rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2.1M Sep 19 22:18 b

`-i` display inode number

On a Unix-style filesystem, an inode number (or file serial number in the POSIX terminology) is a number that uniquely identifies a filesystem object (a file, a directory, a named pipe, … ). With the -i option, the ls command will display its inode number alongside each path.

Even if it seems somewhat exotic, I find myself using the -i option from time to time, especially to identify directory entries that are referencing the same filesystem object. You will use that option mostly when investigating hard links or bind mounts. Take a look at that video for a practical example: https://youtu.be/Jp58Osb1uFo?t=140

sh:~/ls$  ls -i *
8222 a    8243 b    8262 c    8264 hardlink-to-file  8272 symlink-to-file

dir:
8263 d    8264 e    8265 f    8245 subdir  8261 subdir2

symlink-to-subdir:
8266 g    8267 h    8268 i

In the example above, you can see each filename prefixed by the inode number associated with that path. On your system, the numbers will surely differ. Anyway, take a closer look at the hardlink-to-file and dir/e entries. Both have the same inode number (8264 in my case). That means they are two entries referencing the same underlying filesystem object— which is, in fact, the exact definition of what is a hard link.

You may remember I said earlier the parent of the root directory was the root directory itself. By using the -i option, it is quite easy to verify that assertion:

openbsd-6$  ls -id /
2 /
openbsd-6$ ls -ia /
    2 .             25985 bin               5 dev           77954 sbin
    2 ..             1235 boot          51969 etc              10 sys
    8 .cshrc         1240 bsd               2 home              7 tmp
    9 .profile       1241 bsd.booted    77953 mnt               2 usr
51968 altroot           4 bsd.rd        26016 root          78016 var

As you can see, on my system, the root directory is associated with the inode number 2, which is also the inode of its parent. So that proves the root directory is its own parent.

The rarely used options of ls command

I regularly use the options described in the previous section, but those I will talk about now… well… I know they exists. However I must admit when I need them, I often have to look at the man to refresh my memory.

`-L`: display informations about the target of the symbolic links

This option modify the behavior of the ls command when applied to symbolic links. With the -L option, ls will display the information about to the target of the symbolic link instead of displaying those related to the symbolic link itself. By examining the following example, the difference will be obvious:

# Pay special attention to the permission
# and file size for symbolic links with and without
# the `-L` option:
sh:~/ls$  ls -ld *
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 c
drwxr-xr-x 4 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 20 00:09 dir
-rw-r--r-- 2 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 hardlink-to-file
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain       5 Sep 20 00:09 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain      10 Sep 20 00:09 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir
sylvain@bulbizarre:/tmp/ls/ls/ls$ ls -lLd *
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 c
drwxr-xr-x 4 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 20 00:09 dir
-rw-r--r-- 2 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 hardlink-to-file
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 symlink-to-file
drwxr-xr-x 2 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 20 00:09 symlink-to-subdir

`-F`: append a classification character to the filename

The -F option adds an extra character after the pathname of some categories of file system objects to identify them. It will add:

a \ after each pathname that is a directory,
a @ after each pathname that is a symbolic link,
a * after each executable file,
and a | after each FIFO (see mkfifo for more information about that)

In my early Unix days, I used that option a lot. But since ls can colorize its output (and since we have color monitors!), I rarely need that. But I remember it. And from time to time, on a remote terminal, I find an occasion to use it:

sh:~/ls$ ls -F
a  b  c  dir/  hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file@  symlink-to-subdir@

`t`: sort entries by modification time

With the -t option, the ls command with display directory entries sorted by modification time (most recent first) instead of sorting them by their name:

# Default sort order (by filename)
sh:~/ls$  ls
a  b  c  dir  hardlink-to-file    symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir

# Sort by modification date
sh:~/ls$ ls -t
symlink-to-subdir  symlink-to-file  c  dir  hardlink-to-file  b  a

If I change a file, it will now appear as the first (ie: most recently modified) entry in the list:

sh:~/ls$ echo >> a
sh:~/ls$ ls -t
a  symlink-to-subdir  symlink-to-file  c  dir  hardlink-to-file  b

`-S`: sort entries by size

With the -S option, ls will display entries sorted by size, largest file first. In case of a tie, the entries are sorted according to their pathname:

sh:~/ls$ ls -lS
total 6244
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain  2097152 Sep 19 23:49 a
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain  2097152 Sep 19 23:49 b
drwxr-xr-x  4 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 dir
lrwxr-xr-x  1 sylvain  sylvain       10 Sep 19 23:49 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir
lrwxr-xr-x  1 sylvain  sylvain        5 Sep 19 23:49 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain        0 Sep 19 23:49 c
-rw-r--r--  2 sylvain  sylvain        0 Sep 19 23:49 hardlink-to-file

`-r`: reverse sort order

This option reverses the sort order. I find it most useful when associated with the -t option to have the least recently modified file displayed first or with the -S option to display the smallest file first. But it also works with the default, by pathname, sort order:

# Display the least recently modified file first
sh:~/ls$ ls -rt
b  hardlink-to-file  dir  c  symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir  a

# Display the smallest file first
sh:~/ls$ ls -rS
hardlink-to-file  c  symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir  dir  b  a

# Display path names in reversed alphabetical order
sh:~/ls$ ls -r
symlink-to-subdir  symlink-to-file  hardlink-to-file  dir  c  b  a

`-n`: Display numeric UID/GID

This option is exactly the same as the -l option— except with -n the owner’s group id (GID) and user id (UID) are displayed as numbers rather than using their associated name:

 sh:~/ls$ ls -ld a b c /
drwxr-xr-x 28 root    root       4096 May  6 00:28 /
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain sylvain 2097153 Sep 20 00:45 a
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 b
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 c
sh:~/ls$ ls -nd a b c /
drwxr-xr-x 28    0    0    4096 May  6 00:28 /
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000 2097153 Sep 20 00:45 a
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 b
-rw-r--r--  1 1000 1000       0 Sep 20 00:09 c

The really exotic usage of ls command

No one can claim to know everything. And while writing this article, I (re-)discovered a couple of ls options. I can’t remember having used them myself, but maybe did you? If it is the case, I would be curious to read in the comment section in which circumstances you find them useful. Anyway, here is a selection that you might find interesting.

`-R`: recursively list subdirectories

By default, the ls command only display the content of the directories explicitly given on the command line. With the -R option, it will also recursively display the content of the directories encountered:

sh:~/ls$ ls -R
.:
a  b  c  dir  hardlink-to-file    symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir

./dir:
d  e  f  subdir  subdir2

./dir/subdir:
g  h  i

./dir/subdir2:
j  k  l

While intersting in theory, I find (pun intended) the output produced by the find . command more readable for that purpose. But your mileage may vary, of course:

sh:~/ls$  find .
.
./c
./.hidden
./hardlink-to-file
./b
./symlink-to-subdir
./dir
./dir/d
./dir/e
./dir/subdir2
./dir/subdir2/l
./dir/subdir2/j
./dir/subdir2/k
./dir/subdir
./dir/subdir/g
./dir/subdir/i
./dir/subdir/h
./dir/f
./symlink-to-file
./a

`-A`: display almost all files

While not defined in the POSIX standard, the -A options appear both in the GNU and BSD world. In both cases, it works like -a, but excluding the . and .. entries. Worth mentioning on BSD systems, -A is implied for the superuser:

sh:~/ls$  ls -a
.   a  c    hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file
..  b  dir  .hidden          symlink-to-subdir
sh:~/ls$  ls -A
a  b  c  dir  hardlink-to-file    .hidden  symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir

openbsd-6.3$ su root
openbsd-6.3# ls
.hidden a  b  c  dir  hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir

`-f`: do not sort

With the -f option, ls will display entries in the order in which they appear in the directory. That order is dependent on the underlying filesystem, and the order files were created, so it is hardly predictable. The -f option also implies the -a option:

sh:~/ls$  ls -f
..  .hidden          b             dir          a
c   hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir  symlink-to-file  .

openbsd-6$ ls -f
.                   a                   c                   symlink-to-subdir
..                  b                   hardlink-to-file
.hidden             dir                 symlink-to-file

Amusingly enough, with the GNU Coreutils 8.26 ls implementation, you can use both the -l and -f options if you spell it -fl–but not if you write -lf. On OpenBSD both are working as expected:

sh:~/ls$ ls -lf
..  .hidden          b             dir          a
c   hardlink-to-file  symlink-to-subdir  symlink-to-file  .
sh:~/ls$ ls -fl
total 3100
drwxr-xr-x 3 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 19 12:09 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 c
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain      19 Sep 20 00:09 .hidden
-rw-r--r-- 2 sylvain sylvain       0 Sep 20 00:09 hardlink-to-file
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097152 Sep 20 00:09 b
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain      10 Sep 20 00:09 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir
drwxr-xr-x 4 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 20 00:09 dir
lrwxrwxrwx 1 sylvain sylvain       5 Sep 20 00:09 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
-rw-r--r-- 1 sylvain sylvain 2097153 Sep 20 00:45 a
drwxr-xr-x 3 sylvain sylvain    4096 Sep 20 00:09 .

openbsd-6$ ls -lf
total 6256
drwxr-xr-x  3 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain       19 Sep 19 23:49 .hidden
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain  2097152 Sep 19 23:49 a
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain  2097152 Sep 19 23:49 b
drwxr-xr-x  4 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 dir
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain        0 Sep 19 23:49 c
-rw-r--r--  2 sylvain  sylvain        0 Sep 19 23:49 hardlink-to-file
lrwxr-xr-x  1 sylvain  sylvain        5 Sep 19 23:49 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
lrwxr-xr-x  1 sylvain  sylvain       10 Sep 19 23:49 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir
openbsd-6$ ls -fl
total 6256
drwxr-xr-x  3 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain       19 Sep 19 23:49 .hidden
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain  2097152 Sep 19 23:49 a
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain  2097152 Sep 19 23:49 b
drwxr-xr-x  4 sylvain  sylvain      512 Sep 19 23:49 dir
-rw-r--r--  1 sylvain  sylvain        0 Sep 19 23:49 c
-rw-r--r--  2 sylvain  sylvain        0 Sep 19 23:49 hardlink-to-file
lrwxr-xr-x  1 sylvain  sylvain        5 Sep 19 23:49 symlink-to-file -> dir/f
lrwxr-xr-x  1 sylvain  sylvain       10 Sep 19 23:49 symlink-to-subdir -> dir/subdir

`-q`: Display non-printable filename characters as `?`

On Unix-style filesystems, a filename may contain any character except the \ and the NUL characters. This means a filename may contain unprintable characters or even control sequences that may interfere with your terminal. Let’s try something amusing:

touch "$(echo -e '\x1B[7mBOO\x1B[0m')"

Obviously, that filename contains non-printable characters. On modern implementations of ls, the -q option is implied when the output is a terminal, to avoid potential nefarious effects. So the non-printable characters will be replaced by a question mark:

sh:~/ls$ ls *BOO*
?[7mBOO?[0m

However, things will be different if you write that instead:

# I let you try that by yourself
# to not spoil the fun;)
sh:~/ls$ ls *BOO* | cat

The | cat is useless, but as a side effect, the ls command now sees a pipe on its standard output instead of a tty (a “terminal”). Since the output is no longer a terminal, the -q option is no longer implied, and ls will display the filename verbatim. In that case, if all works as expected, to present the file name with a funky video effect.

Explicitly using the -q option would fix that. I will let you try that by yourself (and eventually playing with other ANSI escape sequences). But I take that occasion to warn you against using the ls command in shell scripts. In practice, ls is designed for “human consumption”. There are many side cases regarding specially crafted filenames that are very difficult to handle properly. If you need to walk through a list of files, I strongly encourage you to use the find command instead. In the simplest cases, a simple for loop is even sufficient— but that would be another story.

for f in *; do echo "$f"; done

The end?

So that concludes our tour of the ls command options. No need to mention it was far from being exhaustive and I tried to focus here on the most useful and most portable options. But each ls implementation has its share of cool features, so if you know some nice option I missed in this article, don’t hesitate to share that with us using the comment section. If we have enough feedback, we may even compile and publish them in a follow-up article!

Speaking of ls command, do know the lsof command? It’s not related to ls but it tells you which user is accessing a certain file.

Sylvain Leroux

Engineer by Passion, Teacher by Vocation. My goal is to share my enthusiasm for what I teach and prepare my students to develop their skills by themselves.

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Basic File Commands

Directory Operation Commands

File Viewing Commands

File Editing Commands

File Properties Commands

File Searching Commands

File Manipulation Commands

ls Command Examples

Sample file hierarchy we use in this ls command guide

The well-known use cases of ls command

`<no option>`: the default behavior

`-d`: do not list directory content

`-l`: the long format option

`-a`: display all files

The useful options of ls command

`-s`: display allocated size

`-h` display human-readable sizes

`-i` display inode number

The rarely used options of ls command

`-L`: display informations about the target of the symbolic links

`-F`: append a classification character to the filename

`t`: sort entries by modification time

`-S`: sort entries by size

`-r`: reverse sort order

`-n`: Display numeric UID/GID

The really exotic usage of ls command

`-R`: recursively list subdirectories

`-A`: display almost all files

`-f`: do not sort

`-q`: Display non-printable filename characters as `?`

The end?

On this page

Basic File Commands

Directory Operation Commands

File Viewing Commands

File Editing Commands

File Properties Commands

File Searching Commands

File Manipulation Commands