The ls command

Yaser Rahmati | یاسر رحمتی

The ls command lets you see the files and directories inside a specific directory (current working directory by default). It normally lists the files and directories in ascending alphabetical order.

Examples:

  • To show the files inside your current working directory:

[root@academy tmp]# ls
apa.txt  ks-script-ggLlAt  myfolder   myfolder3
F1       myfile.txt        myfolder2  yum.log
[root@academy tmp]#
  • To show the files and directory inside a specific Directory:

[root@academy /]# ls /tmp
apa.txt  ks-script-ggLlAt  myfolder   myfolder3
F1       myfile.txt        myfolder2  yum.log
[root@academy /]#

Syntax:

ls [-OPTION] [DIRECTORY_PATH]

Additional Flags and their Functionalities:

Short FlagLong FlagDescription

-l

-

Show results in long format

-S

-

Sort results by file size

-t

-

Sort results by modification time

-r

--reverse

Show files and directories in reverse order (descending alphabetical order)

-a

--all

Show all files, including hidden files (file names which begin with a period .)

-la

-

Show long format files and directories including hidden files

-lh

-

list long format files and directories with readable size

-A

--almost-all

.(current working directory) and .. (parent directory)

-d

--directory

Instead of listing the files and directories inside the directory, it shows any information about the directory itself, it can be used with -l to show long formatted information

-F

--classify

Appends an indicator character to the end of each listed name, as an example: / character is appended after each directory name listed

-h

--human-readable

like -l but displays file size in human-readable unit not in bytes

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