ls

List directory contents. Use when you need to view files in a directory, check permissions, sizes, timestamps, or sort/filter file listings.

1.08x

Quality

64%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

74%

1.08x

Average score across 3 eval scenarios

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

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ls - List Directory Contents

Synopsis

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

List information about FILEs (current directory by default). Sorts entries alphabetically unless a sort option is specified.

Flags

Display Control

Flag	Long Form	Description
-a	--all	Show all entries including those starting with .
-A	--almost-all	Show all except . and ..
-B	--ignore-backups	Ignore entries ending with ~
-d	--directory	List directories themselves, not contents
-I	--ignore=PATTERN	Don't list entries matching PATTERN
	--hide=PATTERN	Don't list entries matching PATTERN (overridden by -a/-A)

Format

Flag	Long Form	Description
-l		Long listing format (permissions, owner, size, date)
-1		One entry per line
-C		List entries by columns (default for terminal)
-m		Comma-separated list
-x		List entries by lines instead of columns
	--format=WORD	across/horizontal (-x), commas (-m), long (-l), single-column (-1), verbose (-l), vertical (-C)
-g		Like -l but don't show owner
-o		Like -l but don't show group
-G	--no-group	In long listing, don't print group names
-n	--numeric-uid-gid	Like -l but show numeric UID/GID

Size Display

Flag	Long Form	Description
-h	--human-readable	Print sizes in human-readable format (1K, 234M, 2G)
	--si	Like -h but use powers of 1000 not 1024
-s	--size	Print allocated size in blocks
-k	--kibibytes	Default to 1024-byte blocks (with -s)
	--block-size=SIZE	Scale sizes by SIZE (e.g., --block-size=M)

Sorting

Flag	Long Form	Description
-t		Sort by modification time, newest first
-S		Sort by file size, largest first
-v		Natural sort of version numbers
-X		Sort alphabetically by extension
-U		Do not sort; list in directory order
-r	--reverse	Reverse sort order
-f		Do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color
	--sort=WORD	Sort by WORD: none (-U), size (-S), time (-t), version (-v), extension (-X)
	--group-directories-first	Group directories before files

Time Display

Flag	Long Form	Description
-c		With -lt: sort by ctime; with -l: show ctime
-u		With -lt: sort by access time; with -l: show atime
	--time=WORD	Select time: access/atime/use (-u), ctime/status (-c), birth/creation
	--time-style=STYLE	Time display: full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale, +FORMAT
	--full-time	Like -l --time-style=full-iso

Indicators and Links

Flag	Long Form	Description
-F	--classify	Append indicator (*/=>@\|) to entries
-p		Append / to directories
	--file-type	Like -F but don't append *
-L	--dereference	Show info for link target, not the link
-H	--dereference-command-line	Follow symlinks on command line
-i	--inode	Print inode number of each file
	--hyperlink[=WHEN]	Hyperlink file names (always, auto, never)

Escaping and Color

Flag	Long Form	Description
-b	--escape	Print C-style escapes for nongraphic chars
-q	--hide-control-chars	Print ? instead of nongraphic chars
-N	--literal	Print entry names without quoting
-Q	--quote-name	Enclose entry names in double quotes
	--quoting-style=WORD	literal, locale, shell, shell-always, shell-escape, shell-escape-always, c, escape
	--color[=WHEN]	Colorize output: always, auto, never
-w	--width=COLS	Set output width
-T	--tabsize=COLS	Set tab stop size

Other

Flag	Long Form	Description
-R	--recursive	List subdirectories recursively
	--author	With -l, print author of each file
-D	--dired	Generate output for Emacs dired mode
	--help	Display help and exit
	--version	Output version and exit

Examples

# List all files with details, human-readable sizes
ls -lah

# List only directories
ls -d */

# Sort by modification time, newest first
ls -lt

# Sort by size, largest first
ls -lSh

# Recursive listing
ls -R

# Show inode numbers
ls -li

# One file per line (useful for scripting)
ls -1

# List with full timestamps
ls -l --full-time

# Ignore certain patterns
ls --ignore='*.pyc' --ignore='__pycache__'

# Show only hidden files
ls -d .*

# Natural version sort
ls -v file1.txt file10.txt file2.txt

Gotchas

Do not parse ls output in scripts. Filenames can contain spaces, newlines, and special characters that break parsing. Use find, stat, or shell globs instead.
-a shows . and .., -A does not. Use -A when you want hidden files but not the directory entries.
ls -l shows symlink info; add -L to see the target's info instead.
Color output may interfere with piping. Use --color=never when piping or --color=always to force color through pipes.
Default sort is locale-dependent. Set LC_ALL=C for byte-order sorting.

Repository: flox/floxenvs
Commit: bb1f07d

Last updated: 5 days ago
Created: 5 days ago

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