ls(1)ls(1)NAMEls - Lists and generates statistics for files
SYNOPSISls [-aAbcCdDfFgilLmnopqrRstux1] [file... | directory...]
STANDARDS
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to industry stan‐
dards as follows:
ls: XCU5.0
Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information about
industry standards and associated tags.
OPTIONS
Lists all entries in the directory, including the entries that begin
with a (dot). Entries that begin with a are not displayed unless you
refer to them specifically, or you specify the -a option. [Tru64
UNIX] Lists all entries, except (dot) and (dot-dot). If you issue the
ls command as the superuser, it behaves as if you specified this
option. [Tru64 UNIX] Displays nonprintable characters in octal nota‐
tion. Uses the time of last inode modification (file created, mode
changed, and so on) for sorting when used with the -t option. Displays
the time of last inode modification (instead of the time at which the
file's contents were last modified) when used with the -l option. This
option has effect only when used with either -t or -l or both. Sorts
output vertically in a multicolumn format. This is the default when
output is to a terminal. Displays only the information for the direc‐
tory that is named, rather than for its contents. This is useful with
the -l option to get the status of a directory. If the file is a spe‐
cial file, and the machine is cluster aware, the size field contains
the major and minor device numbers assigned on the local machine.
Lists the name in each slot for each named directory. This option turns
off -l, -t, -s, and -r, and turns on -a; this option uses the order in
which entries appear in the directory. Puts a / (slash) after each
file name if the file is a directory, an * (asterisk) after each file
name if the file can be executed, an = (equal sign) after each file
name if the file is a socket, an @ (at sign) for a symbolic link, and a
| (vertical bar) for a FIFO. Displays the same information as -l,
except for the owner. Displays the file serial number in the first
column of the report for each file. Displays the mode, number of
links, owner, group, size (in bytes), and time of last modification for
each file, and pathname.
[Tru64 UNIX] If the file is a symbolic link, the pathname of
the linked-to file is also preceded by ->. The attributes of the
symbolic link are displayed. The -n option overrides the -l
option.
[Tru64 UNIX] If CMD_ENV=svr4, the ls command reports an l in
the group execution field when mandatory locking is enabled.
[Tru64 UNIX] Lists the file or directory link references rather
than the link itself, if the argument is a symbolic link. Uses
stream output format (a comma-separated series). Displays the
same information as -l, except that it displays the user and the
group IDs instead of the user names and group names. Displays
the same information as with -l, except for the group. The -n
option overrides the -o option. Puts a slash after each file
name if that file is a directory. Displays nonprintable charac‐
ters in file names as a ? (question mark) character, if output
is to a terminal (default). Reverses the order of the sort,
giving reverse collation or the oldest first, as appropriate.
Lists all subdirectories recursively. Gives space used in n
1024-byte units (including indirect blocks) for each entry.
[Tru64 UNIX] When run on an AdvFS clone file set, the ls-s
command displays the space used by the files in the original
file set at the time the clone file set was created. The file
sizes are displayed in 1024-byte units. Sorts by time of last
modification (latest first) instead of by name. Uses the time
of the last access instead of time of the last modification for
sorting (when used with -t) or for displaying (when used with
-l). This option has no effect when not used with either -t or
-l or both. Sorts output horizontally in a multicolumn format.
Forces one entry per line output format; this is the default
when output is not directed to a terminal.
When you specify the following mutually exclusive options, the last
option on the command line takes effect: [Tru64 UNIX] -C and -l (ell)
[Tru64 UNIX] -C and -1 (one) [Tru64 UNIX] -m and -l (ell) [Tru64
UNIX] -x and -l (ell) [Tru64 UNIX] -c and -u
OPERANDS
The path name of a file or directory about which information is to be
output. If this operand is omitted, the current directory is used.
DESCRIPTION
The ls command writes to standard output the contents of each specified
directory or the name of each specified file, along with any other
information you ask for with options. If you do not specify a file or
a directory, ls displays the contents of the current directory.
By default, ls displays all information in collated order by file name.
The collating sequence is determined by the LC_COLLATE environment
variable.
[Tru64 UNIX] There are three main ways to format the output: [Tru64
UNIX] List entries in multiple columns by specifying either the -C or
-x options. When output is to a terminal, -C is the default format.
List one entry per line. List entries in a comma-separated series by
specifying the -m option.
[Tru64 UNIX] The ls command uses ioctl() to determine the number of
byte positions in the output line. If ls cannot get this information,
it uses a default value of 80. Columns may not be smaller than 20
bytes or larger than 400 bytes.
Modes
The mode displayed with the -l option is interpreted by the first char‐
acter, as follows: Block special file Character special file Directory
[Tru64 UNIX] Symbolic link First-In-First-Out (FIFO) special file
[Tru64 UNIX] Local socket Ordinary file
Permissions
The next nine characters are divided into three sets of three charac‐
ters each. The first three characters show the owner's permission.
The next set of three characters show the permission of the other users
in the group. The last set of three characters show the permission of
everyone else. The three characters in each set show read, write and
execute permission of the file. Execute permission of a directory lets
you search a directory for a specified file.
Permissions are indicated as follows: read write execute or search
(directories) no access
The group-execute permission character is s if the file has set-group-
ID mode. The user-execute permission character is s if the file has
set-user-ID mode. The last character of the mode (normally x or -) is t
if the 01000 (octal) bit of the mode is set; see the chmod command for
the meaning of this mode. The indications of set-ID and the 01000 bit
of the mode are capitalized (S and T, respectively) if the correspond‐
ing execute permission is not set.
When there is an access control list (ACL) on the listed directory or
file the group permissions displayed by the ls command are the maximum
permissions allowed for the owning group and for any user or group
identified in a qualified “user” or “group” ACL entry. A given user or
member of a group can have more restrictive permissions. Use the
getacl command to see the ACL for a given file or directory.
When the sizes of the files in a directory are listed, the ls command
displays a total count in 1024-byte units, including indirect blocks.
The LC_TIME environment variable controls the format of the date and
time.
System V Compatibility
[Tru64 UNIX] The root of the directory tree that contains the commands
modified for SVID 2 compliance is specified in the file
/etc/svid2_path. You can use /etc/svid2_profile as the basis for, or to
include in, your /etc/svid2_profile reads /etc/svid2_path and sets the
first entries in the PATH environment variable so that the modified
SVID 2 commands are found first.
[Tru64 UNIX] The SVID 2 compliant version of the ls command produces
multicolumn output only if the -C option is specified. In addition, the
-s option of the SVID 2 compliant command causes file sizes to be
reported in 512-byte units rather than in 1024-byte units.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: Successful completion. An
error occurred.
NOTE
[Tru64 UNIX] Sparse files, such as quota files, may not be using as
much on-disk storage as the ls-l command reports. Use the ls-s com‐
mand to obtain an accurate report of the on-disk storage used by a
sparse file.
EXAMPLES
The following example lists the quota.user file, a sparse file, two
different ways. The example shows that although the last byte in the
file is at logical offset 2097151, the file uses only 24 blocks of on-
disk storage: # ls-l quota.user -rw-r----- 1 root operator 2097152
Apr 29 14:54 quota.user # ls-s quota.user 24 quota.user To list all
files in the current directory, enter: ls-a
This lists all files, including . (dot), .. (dot-dot), and other
files with names beginning with a dot. To display detailed
information, enter: ls-l chap1 .profile
This displays a long listing with detailed information about the
files chap1 and To display detailed information about a direc‐
tory, enter: ls-d -l . manual manual/chap1
This displays a long listing for the directories and manual, and
for the file manual/chap1. Without the -d option, this command
lists the files in and manual instead of providing detailed
information about the directories themselves. To list the files
in the current directory in order of modification time, enter:
ls-l -t
This displays a long listing of the files that were modified
most recently, followed by the older files.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables affect the execution of ls: Deter‐
mines the user's preferred column position width for writing multiple
text-column output. If this variable contains a string representing a
decimal integer, the ls utility calculates how many pathname text col‐
umns to write (see -C) based on the width provided. If COLUMNS is not
set or invalid, an implementation-dependent number of column positions
is assumed, based on the implementation's knowledge of the output
device. The column width chosen to write the names of files in any
given directory will be constant. Filenames will not be truncated to
fit into the multiple text-column output. Provides a default value for
the internationalization variables that are unset or null. If LANG is
unset or null, the corresponding value from the default locale is used.
If any of the internationalization variables contain an invalid set‐
ting, the utility behaves as if none of the variables had been defined.
If set to a non-empty string value, overrides the values of all the
other internationalization variables. Determines the locale for char‐
acter collation information in determining the pathname collation
sequence. Determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed
to multibyte characters in arguments). Determines the locale for the
format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
Determines the format and contents for the date and time strings writ‐
ten by ls. Determines the location of message catalogues for the pro‐
cessing of LC_MESSAGES. Determines the timezone for date and time
strings written by ls.
FILES
Contains user information. Contains group information.
SEE ALSO
Commands: chmod(1), du(1), find(1), ln(1), stty(1)
Functions: ioctl(2)
Files: acl(4)
Standards: standards(5)ls(1)