Linux ls command

Linux Command Reference

Linux ls(Full English spelling: list directory contents) The command is used to display the contents of the specified working directory (listing the files and subdirectories contained in the current working directory).

Syntax

 ls [-alrtAFR] [name...]

Options:

Examples

List all files in the current directory in detail (including hidden files):

ls -la

Sort files by size in reverse order (largest files first):

ls -lShr

Recursively list the contents of the /var/log directory and display human-readable file sizes:

ls -lhR /var/log

Show only detailed information of the directory (non-recursive):

ls -ld /etc

Sort by modification time (newest files shown last):

ls -ltr

List all directories under the root directory:

# ls /
bin               dev   lib         media  net   root     srv  upload  www
boot              etc   lib64       misc   opt   sbin     sys  usr
home  lost+found  mnt    proc  selinux  tmp  var

List detailed information of all directories and files under the /bin directory:

ls -lR /bin

When filenames contain spaces, special characters, or start with a dash, you can use backslash (\) for escaping, or enclose the filenames in quotes. For example:

ls "my file.txt"    # 列出文件名为"my file.txt"的文件
ls my\ file.txt     # 列出文件名为"my file.txt"的文件
ls -- -filename     # 列出文件名为"-filename"的文件

The ls command can also use wildcards for pattern matching, for example*represents matching any characters,?represents matching one character,[...]represents matching characters within a specified range. For example:

ls *.txt         # 列出所有扩展名为.txt的文件
ls file?.txt     # 列出文件名为file?.txt的文件，其中?表示任意一个字符
ls [abc]*.txt    # 列出以a、b或c开头、扩展名为.txt的文件

List all files in the current working directory whose names start with s, with the newest ones at the end:

ls -ltr s*

When using thels -lcommand, the first column of characters indicates the type and permissions of the file or directory. The first character indicates the file type, for example:

• - indicates a regular file
• d indicates a directory
• l indicates a symbolic link
• c indicates a character device file
• b indicates a block device file
• s indicates a socket file
• p indicates a pipe file

When using thels -lcommand, the remaining 9 characters in the first column represent the access permissions of the file or directory, corresponding to three-character groups ofrwxpermissions. For example

• r indicates read permission
• w indicates write permission
• x indicates execute permission
• - indicates no corresponding permission

The first three characters represent the owner's permissions, the middle three represent the group's permissions, and the last three represent other users' permissions. For example:

-rw-r--r-- 1 user group 4096 Feb 21 12:00 file.txt

Indicates the file named file.txt; the owner has read and write permissions, while the group and other users have only read permission.

Find recently modified files:

ls -lt | head -5

Display the 5 most recently modified files.

Count the number of files:

ls | wc -l

Count the number of files in the current directory (excluding hidden files).

Notes

The output color of the ls command can be controlled with the --color option:

• Blue: directory
• Green: executable file
• Red: compressed file
• Cyan: link file
• Yellow: device file

When using ls in scripts, note that directly parsing the output of ls may be unreliable; it is recommended to use other methods.

The ls command may differ slightly across Linux distributions; you canman lsview the specific help documentation.

Linux Command Reference