ls

ls linux command cheatsheet by Thamizhiniyan C S

Introduction

Ls is short for “list”. This command lists information about directories and any type of files in the working directory.

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Syntax

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

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Important Flags

Flag	Description
-a	do not ignore entries starting with .
-A	do not list implied . and ..
-b	print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters
-B	do not list implied entries ending with ~
-c	with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last modification of file status information); with -l: show ctime and sort by name; otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first
-C	list entries by columns
-d	list directories themselves, not their contents
-D	generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode
-f	list all entries in directory order
-F	Add “/” at the end of each directory for distinguishing between files and directories
-g	like -l, but do not list owner
-G	in a long listing, don't print group names
-h	with -l and -s, print sizes like 1K 234M 2G etc.
-H	follow symbolic links listed on the command line
-i	print the index number of each file
-I	do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN
-k	default to 1024-byte blocks for file system usage
-l	use a long listing format
-L	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	like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs
-N	print entry names without quoting
-o	like -l, but do not list group information
-p	append / indicator to directories
-q	print ? instead of nongraphic characters
-Q	enclose entry names in double quotes
-r	reverse order while sorting
-R	list subdirectories recursively
-s	print the allocated size of each file, in blocks
-S	sort by file size, largest first
-t	sort by time, newest first; see --time
-T	assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8
-u	with -lt: sort by, and show, access time
-U	do not sort; list entries in directory order
-v	natural sort of (version) numbers within text
-w	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	print any security context of each file
-1	list one file per line

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Examples

Command	Description
ls -F	Add “/” at the end of each directory for distinguishing between files and directories
ls -m	Prints out directories and files separated by a comma
ls -Q	Add quotation marks to all directories and files
ls -i	To get the Inode (index node) number of all directories and files
ls -r	Sort directories and files in the reverse order
ls -t	Sort directories and files by time and date of creation or modification
ls -X	Sort directories and files alphabetically by entry extension
ls -a	View hidden files
ls -l	To print out a long listing format of files and directories
ls -la	Displays information about the user, size of the file, and date and time of modification of all the files
ls -R	Directory Tree / Recursively listing directories
ls -n	List UID and GID of Files
ls -lh	Display Files in Human Readable Format
ls -ltr	View Reverse Output Order by Date
ls -lS	List Files by Size
ls -ld	To check information about the directory only