5.1.2 What information is listed

These options affect the information that ls displays. By default, only file names are shown.

`-D'

`--dired'

With the long listing (`-l') format, print an additional line after the main output:

//DIRED// beg1 end1 beg2 end2 ...

The begN and endN are unsigned integers that record the byte position of the beginning and end of each file name in the output. This makes it easy for Emacs to find the names, even when they contain unusual characters such as space or newline, without fancy searching.

If directories are being listed recursively (-R), output a similar line after each subdirectory:

//SUBDIRED// format beg1 end1 ...

Finally, output a line of the form:

//DIRED-OPTIONS// --quoting-style=word

where word is the quoting style (see section 5.1.6 Formatting the file names).

`-G'

`--no-group'

Inhibit display of group information in a long format directory listing. (This is the default in some non-GNU versions of ls, so we provide this option for compatibility.)

`-h'

`--human-readable'

Append a size letter such as `M' for megabytes to each size. Powers of 1024 are used, not 1000; `M' stands for 1,048,576 bytes. Use the `--si' option if you prefer powers of 1000.

`-H'

`--si'

Append a size letter such as `M' for megabytes to each size. (SI is the International System of Units, which defines these letters as prefixes.) Powers of 1000 are used, not 1024; `M' stands for 1,000,000 bytes. Use the `-h' or `--human-readable' option if you prefer powers of 1024.

Warning: the meaning of `-H' will change in the future to conform to POSIX. Use `--si' for the old meaning.

`-i'

`--inode'

Print the inode number (also called the file serial number and index number) of each file to the left of the file name. (This number uniquely identifies each file within a particular filesystem.)

`-l'

`--format=long'

`--format=verbose'

In addition to the name of each file, print the file type, permissions, number of hard links, owner name, group name, size in bytes, and timestamp (by default, the modification time). For files with a time more than six months old or in the future, the timestamp contains the year instead of the time of day. If the timestamp contains today's date with the year rather than a time of day, the file's time is in the future, which means you probably have clock skew problems which may break programs like make that rely on file times.

For each directory that is listed, preface the files with a line `total blocks', where blocks is the total disk allocation for all files in that directory. The block size currently defaults to 1024 bytes, but this can be overridden (see section 2.2 Block size). The blocks computed counts each hard link separately; this is arguably a deficiency.

The permissions listed are similar to symbolic mode specifications (see section 3.2 Symbolic Modes). But ls combines multiple bits into the third character of each set of permissions as follows:

`s'

If the setuid or setgid bit and the corresponding executable bit are both set.

`S'

If the setuid or setgid bit is set but the corresponding executable bit is not set.

`t'

If the sticky bit and the other-executable bit are both set.

`T'

If the sticky bit is set but the other-executable bit is not set.

`x'

If the executable bit is set and none of the above apply.

`-'

Otherwise.

Following the permission bits is a single character that specifies whether an alternate access method applies to the file. When that character is a space, there is no alternate access method. When it is a printing character (e.g., `+'), then there is such a method.

`-o'

Produce long format directory listings, but don't display group information. It is equivalent to using `--format=long' with `--no-group' . This option is provided for compatibility with other versions of ls.

`-s'

`--size'

Print the disk allocation of each file to the left of the file name. This is the amount of disk space used by the file, which is usually a bit more than the file's size, but it can be less if the file has holes.

Normally the disk allocation is printed in units of 1024 bytes, but this can be overridden (see section 2.2 Block size).

For files that are NFS-mounted from an HP-UX system to a BSD system, this option reports sizes that are half the correct values. On HP-UX systems, it reports sizes that are twice the correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from BSD systems. This is due to a flaw in HP-UX; it also affects the HP-UX ls program.