ls

For other uses, seeLS.

ls

Long file listing withls --color=auto -lin Linux showing various modes, date formats, colors and appended indicators (executables and directories).
Original author(s)	coreutils:Richard Stallmanand David MacKenzie
Developer(s)	Variousopen-sourceandcommercialdevelopers
Written in	C
Operating system	Multics,Unix,Unix-like,Plan 9,Inferno,MSX-DOS
Type	Command
License	coreutils:GPLv3+ BusyBox:GPL-2.0-only Toybox:0BSD Plan 9:MIT License

Incomputing,lsis acommandto listcomputer filesand directories inUnixandUnix-likeoperating systems. It is specified byPOSIXand theSingle UNIX Specification.

It is available in theEFI shell,as a separate package forMicrosoft Windowsas part of theUnxUtilscollection ofnativeWin32portsof commonGNUUnix-like utilities, or as part ofASCII'sMSX-DOS2 ToolsforMSX-DOSversion 2.

Thenumerical computingenvironmentsMATLABandGNU Octaveinclude anls function with similar functionality.

In other environments, such asDOS,OS/2,andMicrosoft Windows,similar functionality is provided by thedircommand.

History

Anlsutility appeared in the first version ofAT&TUNIX,the name inherited from a similar command inMulticsalso named 'ls', short for the word "list".lsis part of theX/OpenPortability Guide since issue 2 of 1987. It was inherited into the first version of POSIX.1 and theSingle Unix Specification.

Behavior

UnixandUnix-likeoperating systems maintain the idea of aworking directory.When invoked withoutarguments,lslists the files in the working directory. If a directory is specified as an argument, the files in that directory are listed; if a file is specified, that file is listed. Multiple directories and files may be specified.

In many Unix-like systems, names starting with adot(.) arehidden.Examples are.,which refers to the working directory, and..,which refers to its parent directory. Hidden names are not shown by default. With-a,all names, including all hidden names, are shown. Using-Ashows all names, including hidden names, except for.and...File names specified explicitly (for examplels.secret) are always listed.

Without options,lsdisplays names only. The different implementations have different options, but common options include:

• -lLong format, displayingUnix file types,permissions, number ofhard links,owner, group, size, last-modified date-time and name. 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.
• -hOutput sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K (kilobytes), 234M (megabytes), 2G (gigabytes)). This option is not part of the POSIX standard, although implemented in several systems, e.g., GNU coreutils in 1997,FreeBSD 4.5 in 2002,and Solaris 9 in 2002.

Additional options controlling how items are displayed include:

• -RRecursively list items in subdirectories.
• -tSort the list by modification time (default sort is Alpha betically).
• -uSort the list by last access time.
• -cSort the list by last attribute (status) change time.
• -rReverse the order, for example most recent time last.
• --full-timeShow times down to the second and millisecond instead of just the minute.
• -1One entry per line.
• -mStream format; list items across the page, separated by commas.
• -gInclude group but not owner.
• -oInclude owner but not group (when combined with-gboth group and owner are suppressed).
• -dShow information about a directory or symbolic link, rather than the contents of a directory or the link's target.
• -FAppend a "/" to directory names and a "*" to executable files.

It may be possible to highlight different types of items with different colors. This is an area where implementations differ:

• GNUlsuses the--coloroption;it checks the Unix file type, the file permissions and the file extension and uses its own database to control colors maintained usingdircolors.
• FreeBSDlsuses the-Goption; it checks only the Unix file type and file permissions and uses thetermcapdatabase

When the option to use color to indicate item types is selected, the output might look like:

-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 26650 Dec 20 11:16audio.ogg
brw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 64 Jan 27 05:52bd-block-device
crw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 255 Jan 26 13:57cd-character-device
-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 290 Jan 26 14:08image.png
drwxrwxr-x 2 tsmitt nregion 48 Jan 26 11:28di-directory
-rwxrwxr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 29 Jan 26 14:03ex-executable
-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 09:39fi-regular-file
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tsmitt nregion 3 Jan 26 11:44ln-soft-link->dir
lrwxrwxrwx 1 tsmitt nregion 15 Dec 20 10:57or-orphan-link->mi-missing-link
drwxr-xrwx 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 10:58ow-other-writeable-dir
prw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Jan 26 11:50pi-pipe
-rwxr-sr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 11:05sg-setgid
srw-rw-rw- 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Jan 26 12:00so-socket
drwxr-xr-t 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 10:58st-sticky-dir
-rwsr-xr-x 1 tsmitt nregion 0 Dec 20 11:09su-setuid
-rw-r--r-- 1 tsmitt nregion 10240 Dec 20 11:12compressed.gz
drwxrwxrwt 2 tsmitt nregion 4096 Dec 20 11:10tw-sticky-other-writeable-dir

Sample usage

The following example demonstrates the output of the command:

$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 line shows thed(directory) or-(file) indicator,Unix file permission notation,number ofhard links(1 or 3), the file's owner, the file's group, the file size, the modification date/time, and the file name. In the working directory, the ownerfjoneshas a directory nameddrafts,a regular file namededition-32,and an executable namededit.shwhich 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
|│ │ │ ┌── number of hard links
|│ │ │ │ ┌── owner
|│ │ │ │ │ ┌── user group
|│ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── file size in bytes
|│ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── last modified on
|│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌── filename
-rw-r--r-- 3 fjones editors 30405 Mar 2 12:52 edition-32

See also

• stat (Unix)
• chown
• chgrp
• du (Unix)
• mdls
• User identifier (Unix)
• Group identifier (Unix)
• List of Unix commands
• Unix directory structure

External links

• ls– Shell and Utilities Reference,The Single UNIX Specification,Version 4 fromThe Open Group
• ls(1)–FreeBSDGeneral CommandsManual
• ls(1)–NetBSDGeneral CommandsManual
• ls(1)–OpenBSDGeneral CommandsManual
• ls(1)–Solaris 11.4User Commands ReferenceManual
• ls(1)–LinuxUserManual– User Commands
• ls(1)–Plan 9Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
• ls(1)–InfernoGeneral commandsManual
• GNUlssource code (as part of coreutils)
• lsat the LinuxQuestions.org wiki