ls - displaying directory contents in many ways

Here goes another tutorial that would uncover samples of using the most commonly used linux command using the command line terminal.

This linux blog entry covers the tutorial of using one of the simplest command line in linux terminal.

LS Tutorial - Display Files and Folders in Linux

ls is a linux command that is basically being used from command line terminal to list down directory contents. Directory contents can are linux files, it can be typical directory files, special files, directories, hard and soft links or any other device contents.

File items and directory folders are usually the contents of current working folder. Linux directory usually contains folder locations the probably contains zero or more files inside it, while linux files are files, hard or soft links to files or device that contains zero or more data contents when viewed or referenced from.

Here are more ls samples that might be helpful on learning this ls command.

How to list down all files and directory folders of current working directory.

# ls

How to list down all files and directories using ls a short format form


# ls -a

How to list down all files and directories using ls a short format form

# ls -la

Using the above two commands shows linux files and folders. In a long format, ls shows directory contents with their corresponding file attributes and file ownership and permissions, date/time stamps and filesize .

Most linux distro uses command aliases.

To print the current alias for ls, simply

# alias ls

Using the above command would show the current ls alias and ls parameters when issued directly from the command line. This goes to any other linux command aliases.

To continue with ls command, here's how to list down all directory contents excluding . and .. in a short ls form

# ls -A

Combining the previous two commands of using ls to show the long format form and all directory contents but without . and ..

# ls -Ala

To list down directory contents in a more human readable form showing sizes like 1K, 2M 3G file sizes

# ls -h
# ls -hal
# ls -halA

To list down directory contents without showing ownership and group names would be done respectively like so

# ls -aG
# ls -aGg


To list down directories and folders only in ls short form

# ls -d */

To list down directories and folders only in ls long form would be

# ls -dl */

To list down directories and folders start starts with d displayed in ls short form would be

# ls -d d*/

To list down directories and folders start starts with d displayed in ls long form would be

# ls -dl d*/

ls always shows directory contents in a colored ls alias fashion. To ignore and display directory contents without screen colors would be

# ls -la --color=never

To list down directory contents with reverse matching pattern and hide a specified patterns from being displayed would be

# ls --hide=v*
# ls --ignore=v*


The above list down all directory contents except the ones that starts with the letter v

To list down directory contents with numeric user and group IDs using ls would be

# ls -n

To list down directory contents with index number of each item would be

# ls -lai

To list down directory contents showing also the link reference rather than the link itself would be

# cd /dev
# ls -laL

To list down directory contents recursively would be

# ls -R

To list down directory contents sorted by modification time would be

# ls -t
# ls -lat

The default ls tab stop is 8, if you want to customize the ls tab stop, simply specify it like so

# ls --tabsize=16

To list down directory contents separated by comma in a short ls form would be

# ls -m

To reverse the sort ordering display of directory contents using ls would be

# ls -r
# ls -lar

HTH