File: coreutils.info,  Node: ls invocation,  Next: dir invocation,  Up: Directory listing

10.1 ‘ls’: List directory contents
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The ‘ls’ program lists information about files (of any type, including
directories).  Options and file arguments can be intermixed arbitrarily,
as usual.  Later options override earlier options that are incompatible.

   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.(1)  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.

   Exit status:

     0 success
     1 minor problems  (e.g., failure to access a file or directory not
       specified as a command line argument.  This happens when listing a
       directory in which entries are actively being removed or renamed.)
     2 serious trouble (e.g., memory exhausted, invalid option, failure
       to access a file or directory specified as a command line argument
       or a directory loop)

   Also see *note Common options::.

* Menu:

* Which files are listed::
* What information is listed::
* Sorting the output::
* General output formatting::
* Formatting file timestamps::
* Formatting the file names::

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) If you use a non-POSIX locale (e.g., by setting ‘LC_ALL’ to
‘en_US’), then ‘ls’ may produce output that is sorted differently than
you’re accustomed to.  In that case, set the ‘LC_ALL’ environment
variable to ‘C’.