ls

When invoked with no path argument, ls lists the files of the working directory. Otherwise, it includes each specified file and each file of a specified directory.

Commonly in Unix-like systems, file names starting with a . are not shown by default. But with opion -a (all), hidden names are included. Option -A does the same except excludes the special entries . (working directory) and .. (parent of working directory). Regardless of name, all names explicitly input included in the output.

Common options include:

• -l selects the long output format which extends the default output of the file name with additional information including type, permissions, hard link count, owning user and group, size, last-modified timestamp. 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 as so-called human readable by using units of KB, MB, GB instead of bytes. This option is not part of the POSIX standard, although implemented in several systems, e.g., GNU coreutils in 1997,{{cite web |url=http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/commit/src/ls.c?id=b76a4533046163978f7517f9ea6d3307bfa0a98a |title=(decode_switches): -h and -H override output units. |publisher=coreutils.git |date=1997-12-31 }} FreeBSD 4.5 in 2002,{{cite web |url=https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=88591 |title=[base] Log of /stable/10/bin/ls/ls.c |date=2001-12-28}} and Solaris 9 in 2002.{{citation |url=http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19683-01/806-5202/6je7shk5c/index.html |title=What's New in the Solaris 9 Operating Environment |publisher=Sun Microsystems |year=2002}}

• -R Include files of a directory tree, recursively
• -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 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

The following example shows the long form output:

$ ls -l

drwxr--r-- 1 fjones editors 4096 Mar 2 12:52 drafts

-rw-r--r-- 3 fjones editors 30405 Mar 2 12:52 edition-32

-r-xr-xr-x 1 fjones bookkeepers 8460 Jan 16 2022 edit.sh

Each output line includes a file type letter ('-' for file, 'd' for directory), 9 letters representing permissions, the number of hard links, owning user, owning group, size, modification date, 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.

┌─────────── file (not a directory)

|┌─────────── read-write (no execution) permissions for the owner

|│ ┌───────── read-only permissions for the group

|│ │ ┌─────── read-only permissions for others

|│ │ │ ┌── 3 hard links

|│ │ │ │ ┌── owning user

|│ │ │ │ │ ┌── owning group

|│ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── file size in bytes

|│ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── last modified on

|│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── filename

-rw-r--r-- 3 fjones editors 30405 Mar 2 12:52 edition-32

Some implementations support color output to indicate metadata. GNU ls provides the --color option{{Cite web |title=General output formatting (GNU Coreutils 9.1) |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/General-output-formatting.html |access-date=2023-01-07 |website=www.gnu.org}} which enables using a database to control colors maintained using dircolors. FreeBSD ls provides the -G option which enables using the termcap database{{cite web |url=http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ls |title=FreeBSD Man Pages — ls |access-date=June 23, 2013 }} The following example shows possible color output:

-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 26650 Dec 20 11:16 audio.ogg

brw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 64 Jan 27 05:52 bd-block-device

crw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 255 Jan 26 13:57 cd-character-device

-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 290 Jan 26 14:08 image.png

drwxrwxr-x 2 tsmitt nregion 48 Jan 26 11:28 di-directory

-rwxrwxr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 29 Jan 26 14:03 ex-executable

-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 09:39 fi-regular-file

lrwxrwxrwx 1 tsmitt nregion 3 Jan 26 11:44 ln-soft-link -> dir

lrwxrwxrwx 1 tsmitt nregion 15 Dec 20 10:57 or-orphan-link -> mi-missing-link

drwxr-xrwx 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 10:58 ow-other-writeable-dir

prw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Jan 26 11:50 pi-pipe

-rwxr-sr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 11:05 sg-setgid

srw-rw-rw- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Jan 26 12:00 so-socket

drwxr-xr-t 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 10:58 st-sticky-dir

-rwsr-xr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 11:09 su-setuid

-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 10240 Dec 20 11:12 compressed.gz

drwxrwxrwt 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 11:10 tw-sticky-other-writeable-dir

• {{Annotated link|stat (Unix)}}
• {{Annotated link|chown}}
• {{Annotated link|chgrp}}
• {{Annotated link|du (Unix)}}
• {{Annotated link|mdls}}
• {{Annotated link|User identifier (Unix)}}
• {{Annotated link|Group identifier (Unix)}}
• {{Annotated link|List of POSIX commands}}
• {{Annotated link|Unix directory structure}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Wikibooks|Guide to Unix|Commands}}

• {{man|cu|ls}}
• {{man|1|ls|FreeBSD}}
• {{man|1|ls|NetBSD}}
• {{man|1|ls|OpenBSD}}
• {{man|1|ls|Solaris}}
• {{man|1|ls|Linux}}
• {{man|1|ls|Plan 9}}
• {{man|1|ls|Inferno}}
• [http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/coreutils/ GNU ls source code (as part of coreutils)]
• [http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Ls ls] at the LinuxQuestions.org wiki

{{Unix commands}}

{{Plan 9 commands}}

{{Core Utilities commands}}

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