File: coreutils.info,  Node: Formatting the file names,  Prev: Formatting file timestamps,  Up: ls invocation

10.1.6 Formatting the file names
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These options change how file names themselves are printed.

‘-b’
‘--escape’
‘--quoting-style=escape’
     Quote nongraphic characters in file names using alphabetic and
     octal backslash sequences like those used in C.

‘-N’
‘--literal’
‘--quoting-style=literal’
     Do not quote file names.  However, with ‘ls’ nongraphic characters
     are still printed as question marks if the output is a terminal and
     you do not specify the ‘--show-control-chars’ option.

‘-q’
‘--hide-control-chars’
     Print question marks instead of nongraphic characters in file
     names.  This is the default if the output is a terminal and the
     program is ‘ls’.

‘-Q’
‘--quote-name’
‘--quoting-style=c’
     Enclose file names in double quotes and quote nongraphic characters
     as in C.

‘--quoting-style=WORD’
     Use style WORD to quote file names and other strings that may
     contain arbitrary characters.  The WORD should be one of the
     following:

     ‘literal’
          Output strings as-is; this is the same as the ‘--literal’
          (‘-N’) option.
     ‘shell’
          Quote strings for the shell if they contain shell
          metacharacters or would cause ambiguous output.  The quoting
          is suitable for POSIX-compatible shells like ‘bash’, but it
          does not always work for incompatible shells like ‘csh’.
     ‘shell-always’
          Quote strings for the shell, even if they would normally not
          require quoting.
     ‘shell-escape’
          Like ‘shell’, but also quoting non-printable characters using
          the POSIX proposed ‘$''’ syntax suitable for most shells.
     ‘shell-escape-always’
          Like ‘shell-escape’, but quote strings even if they would
          normally not require quoting.
     ‘c’
          Quote strings as for C character string literals, including
          the surrounding double-quote characters; this is the same as
          the ‘--quote-name’ (‘-Q’) option.
     ‘escape’
          Quote strings as for C character string literals, except omit
          the surrounding double-quote characters; this is the same as
          the ‘--escape’ (‘-b’) option.
     ‘clocale’
          Quote strings as for C character string literals, except use
          surrounding quotation marks appropriate for the locale.
     ‘locale’
          Quote strings as for C character string literals, except use
          surrounding quotation marks appropriate for the locale, and
          quote 'like this' instead of "like this" in the default C
          locale.  This looks nicer on many displays.

     You can specify the default value of the ‘--quoting-style’ option
     with the environment variable ‘QUOTING_STYLE’.  If that environment
     variable is not set, the default value is ‘shell-escape’ when the
     output is a terminal, and ‘literal’ otherwise.

‘--show-control-chars’
     Print nongraphic characters as-is in file names.  This is the
     default unless the output is a terminal and the program is ‘ls’.