Linux operating system provides a lot of different functionalities with different tools and commands. ls is the most used command in linux. ls is the arm and leg of Linux system administrator. ls provides a lot of different functionalities with different options.

Man ls

Man page of ls command can be retrieved like below.

$ man ls

List Files

We can list files and folders simple without providing any parameter. This will list all files except hidden files those names starts with .

$ ls

List Files According To Modification Date

-t parameter make listing according to their modification date. REcently modified file will be listed in the upper side

$ ls -t

Display One File Per Line

We can set 1 file will be listed in single line. This is generally useful for providing file list as an input into other commands or applications.

$ ls -1

Show Detailed File Information

We can get more details about files and folders with -l option.

$ ls -l

• drwxr-xr-x is permission information
• root root is user and group information. It is related with permission
• 4096 is the size in byte . Folders have same size
• Oct  6  12:08 is the modification date
• Amsterdam is the file or folder name

Display Size Information Human Readable Format

We see that size is in byte format we can change is MB,GB format according to its size

$ ls -lh

Display Directory Information

We can list only directory with -d  option. It will not list files and directories under it.

$ ls -dl tmux

Reverse Order List

We can list files and folders according to their names, modification date. But we can reverse order with -r parameter

$ ls -ltr

Display Hidden Files

Linux world hidden files are pretended with a point before their name. By default ls do not list these files. We can list them too with -a 

$ ls -l -a

Display Files Recursively

We can display files recursively  with -R parameter. Recursively means we will list folders and their contents and this goes to the deepest path.

$ ls -R

Display Files Inode Numbers

Inode is file system related information about files and folders. Inodes generally do not needed daily usage but sometimes it can be important.

$ ls -l -i

Display User Id (UID) and Group Id (GUID)

We can list user and group id of files according to their names

$ ls -n

• 0 0 are user and group id of root

Classification of Files with Colors

Coloring will easy viewed of the files and folders. We can colorize the ls command output with the --color=auto option.

$ ls --color=auto

Alias for ls

We can make providing parameters more practical. We can define alias for ls commands with parameters.

$ alias ll="ls -lh"

• alias create ll command
• ls -lh is the actual command where it will be called ll is issued

List Files and Directories with / At The End

To in scripts or other types directories and files can be listed with / at the end with -F

$ ls -F

Sort Files By Size

One of the most useful option of ls command is sorting files according to their sizes. This will list bigger files first and then decreasingly.

$ ls -lS

 

Linux ls Command Tutorial With Examples Infografic