Tutorial 5: Introduction to ls Command

ls command is used to list files and directories in current working directory.

Eg.

cat > test1

This is a test file.

ls

In the above set of commands we created a file called test1. Later, we executed ls command to see the list of files and directories in pwd.

The above screenshot shows the output of ls command. We can see that it shows the list of files and directories. The names highlighted in blue are the names of folders while the ones in white are the files. The same can also be verified from the file browser.

ls command can also be used to view the files and folders in another directory.

Eg. ls Desktop

The above command will show the list of files and directories in Desktop folder. It is shown in the below screenshot.

From above screenshot we can see that the Desktop folder has a file named Shell Scripting - In a Nutshell.docx

If we also want to see the files and permissions for the files and the folders then we can use ls command with -l.

Eg. ls -l

You can see from the above screenshot that the first line of output shows "total 40".

This means that all the files and folders listed collectively occupy 40 blocks of memory (Each block of memory is 1024 bytes).

Moreover, you can observe that some of the listing the first column starts with d, while for some it starts with -. Please note that, whenever the first column starts with d, then it is a directory while, if the first column starts with - then it is a file.

Now, let us have a look at the permissions. The second, third and the fourth columns tell about the permissions to the owner, next three columns tell about the permissions to the group while the subsequent three columns tell about the permissions to other user.

For example, the Desktop has read, write and execute permissions for the owner, while only read and execute permissions for the group and other users.

Another important extension for ls is -a where 'a' stands for 'All'. When you use ls command with -a, it will show the list of all the files and folders including those which are hidden.

Eg.

As seen in the above screenshot, ls -a displayed the list of all the files and folders in present working directory including those which are hidden. Here, all the files and folders starting with . denote hidden.

ls command can be used with many more options however, above two are the most widely used options. As we move further in the tutorial, we will see some more.