ls(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | AUTHOR | REPORTING BUGS | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

LS(1)                         User Commands                        LS(1)

NAME         top

       ls - list directory contents

SYNOPSIS         top

       ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION         top

       List information about the FILEs (the current directory by
       default).  Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor
       --sort is specified.

       Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short
       options too.

       -a, --all
              do not ignore entries starting with .

       -A, --almost-all
              do not list implied . and ..

       --author
              with -l, print the author of each file

       -b, --escape
              print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters

       --block-size=SIZE
              with -l, scale sizes by SIZE when printing them; e.g.,
              '--block-size=M'; see SIZE format below

       -B, --ignore-backups
              do not list implied entries ending with ~

       -c     with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last change of
              file status information); with -l: show ctime and sort by
              name; otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first

       -C     list entries by columns

       --color[=WHEN]
              color the output WHEN; more info below

       -d, --directory
              list directories themselves, not their contents

       -D, --dired
              generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode

       -f     do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color

       -F, --classify[=WHEN]
              append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries WHEN

       --file-type
              likewise, except do not append '*'

       --format=WORD
              across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l,
              single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C

       --full-time
              like -l --time-style=full-iso

       -g     like -l, but do not list owner

       --group-directories-first
              group directories before files; can be augmented with a
              --sort option, but any use of --sort=none (-U) disables
              grouping

       -G, --no-group
              in a long listing, don't print group names

       -h, --human-readable
              with -l and -s, print sizes like 1K 234M 2G etc.

       --si   likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024

       -H, --dereference-command-line
              follow symbolic links listed on the command line

       --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir
              follow each command line symbolic link that points to a
              directory

       --hide=PATTERN
              do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN
              (overridden by -a or -A)

       --hyperlink[=WHEN]
              hyperlink file names WHEN

       --indicator-style=WORD
              append indicator with style WORD to entry names: none
              (default), slash (-p), file-type (--file-type), classify
              (-F)

       -i, --inode
              print the index number of each file

       -I, --ignore=PATTERN
              do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN

       -k, --kibibytes
              default to 1024-byte blocks for file system usage; used
              only with -s and per directory totals

       -l     use a long listing format

       -L, --dereference
              when showing file information for a symbolic link, show
              information for the file the link references rather than
              for the link itself

       -m     fill width with a comma separated list of entries

       -n, --numeric-uid-gid
              like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs

       -N, --literal
              print entry names without quoting

       -o     like -l, but do not list group information

       -p, --indicator-style=slash
              append / indicator to directories

       -q, --hide-control-chars
              print ? instead of nongraphic characters

       --show-control-chars
              show nongraphic characters as-is (the default, unless
              program is 'ls' and output is a terminal)

       -Q, --quote-name
              enclose entry names in double quotes

       --quoting-style=WORD
              use quoting style WORD for entry names: literal, locale,
              shell, shell-always, shell-escape, shell-escape-always, c,
              escape (overrides QUOTING_STYLE environment variable)

       -r, --reverse
              reverse order while sorting

       -R, --recursive
              list subdirectories recursively

       -s, --size
              print the allocated size of each file, in blocks

       -S     sort by file size, largest first

       --sort=WORD
              sort by WORD instead of name: none (-U), size (-S), time
              (-t), version (-v), extension (-X), width

       --time=WORD
              select which timestamp used to display or sort; access
              time (-u): atime, access, use; metadata change time (-c):
              ctime, status; modified time (default): mtime,
              modification; birth time: birth, creation;

              with -l, WORD determines which time to show; with
              --sort=time, sort by WORD (newest first)

       --time-style=TIME_STYLE
              time/date format with -l; see TIME_STYLE below

       -t     sort by time, newest first; see --time

       -T, --tabsize=COLS
              assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8

       -u     with -lt: sort by, and show, access time; with -l: show
              access time and sort by name; otherwise: sort by access
              time, newest first

       -U     do not sort; list entries in directory order

       -v     natural sort of (version) numbers within text

       -w, --width=COLS
              set output width to COLS.  0 means no limit

       -x     list entries by lines instead of by columns

       -X     sort alphabetically by entry extension

       -Z, --context
              print any security context of each file

       --zero end each output line with NUL, not newline

       -1     list one file per line

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

       The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K
       is 10*1024).  Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y,R,Q (powers of 1024) or
       KB,MB,... (powers of 1000).  Binary prefixes can be used, too:
       KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

       The TIME_STYLE argument can be full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale,
       or +FORMAT.  FORMAT is interpreted like in date(1).  If FORMAT is
       FORMAT1<newline>FORMAT2, then FORMAT1 applies to non-recent files
       and FORMAT2 to recent files.  TIME_STYLE prefixed with 'posix-'
       takes effect only outside the POSIX locale.  Also the TIME_STYLE
       environment variable sets the default style to use.

       The WHEN argument defaults to 'always' and can also be 'auto' or
       'never'.

       Using color to distinguish file types is disabled both by default
       and with --color=never.  With --color=auto, ls emits color codes
       only when standard output is connected to a terminal.  The
       LS_COLORS environment variable can change the settings.  Use the
       dircolors(1) command to set it.

   Exit status:
       0      if OK,

       1      if minor problems (e.g., cannot access subdirectory),

       2      if serious trouble (e.g., cannot access command-line
              argument).

AUTHOR         top

       Written by Richard M. Stallman and David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       GNU coreutils online help:
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute
       it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       dircolors(1)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/ls>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) ls invocation'

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the tarball coreutils-9.5.tar.xz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/⟩ on 2024-06-14.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
       manual page), send a mail to [email protected]

GNU coreutils 9.5              March 2024                          LS(1)

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