10.1 ls: List directory contents

The ls program lists information about files (of any type, including directories). Options and file arguments can be intermixed arbitrarily, as usual.

For non-option command-line arguments that are directories, by default ls lists the contents of directories, not recursively, and omitting files with names beginning with `.'. For other non-option arguments, by default ls lists just the file name. If no non-option argument is specified, ls operates on the current directory, acting as if it had been invoked with a single argument of `.'.

By default, the output is sorted alphabetically, according to the locale settings in effect. (2) If standard output is a terminal, the output is in columns (sorted vertically) and control characters are output as question marks; otherwise, the output is listed one per line and control characters are output as-is.

Because ls is such a fundamental program, it has accumulated many options over the years. They are described in the subsections below; within each section, options are listed alphabetically (ignoring case). The division of options into the subsections is not absolute, since some options affect more than one aspect of ls's operation.

Also see 2. Common options.

10.1.1 Which files are listed
10.1.2 What information is listed
10.1.3 Sorting the output
10.1.4 More details about version sort
10.1.5 General output formatting
10.1.6 Formatting file timestamps
10.1.7 Formatting the file names