bin/ls/ls.1

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.Dd July 18, 2023
.Dt LS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ls
.Nd list directory contents
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl ABCFGHILPRSTUWZabcdfghiklmnopqrstuvwxy1\&,
.Op Fl -color Ns = Ns Ar when
.Op Fl D Ar format
.Op Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
For each operand that names a
.Ar file
of a type other than
directory,
.Nm
displays its name as well as any requested,
associated information.
For each operand that names a
.Ar file
of type directory,
.Nm
displays the names of files contained
within that directory, as well as any requested, associated
information.
.Pp
If no operands are given, the contents of the current
directory are displayed.
If more than one operand is given,
non-directory operands are displayed first; directory
and non-directory operands are sorted separately and in
lexicographical order.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl A
Include directory entries whose names begin with a
dot
.Pq Sq Pa \&.
except for
.Pa \&.
and
.Pa .. .
Automatically set for the super-user unless
.Fl I
is specified.
.It Fl B
Force printing of non-printable characters (as defined by
.Xr ctype 3
and current locale settings) in file names as
.Li \e Ns Va xxx ,
where
.Va xxx
is the numeric value of the character in octal.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl C
Force multi-column output; this is the default when output is to a terminal.
.It Fl D Ar format
When printing in the long
.Pq Fl l
format, use
.Ar format
to format the date and time output.
The argument
.Ar format
is a string used by
.Xr strftime 3 .
Depending on the choice of format string, this may result in a
different number of columns in the output.
This option overrides the
.Fl T
option.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl F
Display a slash
.Pq Ql /
immediately after each pathname that is a directory,
an asterisk
.Pq Ql *
after each that is executable,
an at sign
.Pq Ql @
after each symbolic link,
an equals sign
.Pq Ql =
after each socket,
a percent sign
.Pq Ql %
after each whiteout,
and a vertical bar
.Pq Ql \&|
after each that is a
.Tn FIFO .
.It Fl G
Enable colorized output.
This option is equivalent to defining
.Ev CLICOLOR
or
.Ev COLORTERM
in the environment and setting
.Fl -color Ns = Ns Ar auto .
(See below.)
This functionality can be compiled out by removing the definition of
.Ev COLORLS .
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl H
Symbolic links on the command line are followed.
This option is assumed if
none of the
.Fl F , d ,
or
.Fl l
options are specified.
.It Fl I
Prevent
.Fl A
from being automatically set for the super-user.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl L
If argument is a symbolic link, list the file or directory the link references
rather than the link itself.
This option cancels the
.Fl P
option.
.It Fl P
If argument is a symbolic link, list the link itself rather than the
object the link references.
This option cancels the
.Fl H
and
.Fl L
options.
.It Fl R
Recursively list subdirectories encountered.
.It Fl S
Sort by size (largest file first) before sorting the operands in
lexicographical order.
.It Fl T
When printing in the long
.Pq Fl l
format, display complete time information for the file, including
month, day, hour, minute, second, and year.
The
.Fl D
option gives even more control over the output format.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl U
Use time when file was created for sorting or printing.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl W
Display whiteouts when scanning directories.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl Z
Display each file's MAC label; see
.Xr maclabel 7 .
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl a
Include directory entries whose names begin with a
dot
.Pq Sq Pa \&. .
.It Fl b
As
.Fl B ,
but use
.Tn C
escape codes whenever possible.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl c
Use time when file status was last changed for sorting or printing.
.It Fl -color Ns = Ns Ar when
Output colored escape sequences based on
.Ar when ,
which may be set to either
.Cm always ,
.Cm auto ,
or
.Cm never .
.Pp
.Cm always
will make
.Nm
always output color.
If
.Ev TERM
is unset or set to an invalid terminal, then
.Nm
will fall back to explicit
.Tn ANSI
escape sequences without the help of
.Xr termcap 5 .
.Cm always
is the default if
.Fl -color
is specified without an argument.
.Pp
.Cm auto
will make
.Nm
output escape sequences based on
.Xr termcap 5 ,
but only if
.Dv stdout
is a tty and either the
.Fl G
flag is specified or the
.Ev COLORTERM
environment variable is set and not empty.
.Pp
.Cm never
will disable color regardless of environment variables.
.Cm never
is the default when neither
.Fl -color
nor
.Fl G
is specified.
.Pp
For compatibility with GNU coreutils,
.Nm
supports
.Cm yes
or
.Cm force
as equivalent to
.Cm always ,
.Cm no
or
.Cm none
as equivalent to
.Cm never ,
and
.Cm tty
or
.Cm if-tty
as equivalent to
.Cm auto .
.It Fl d
Directories are listed as plain files (not searched recursively).
.It Fl f
Output is not sorted.
This option turns on
.Fl a .
It also negates the effect of the
.Fl r ,
.Fl S
and
.Fl t
options.
As allowed by
.St -p1003.1-2008 ,
this option has no effect on the
.Fl d ,
.Fl l ,
.Fl R
and
.Fl s
options.
.It Fl g
Display the long
.Pq Fl l
format output without the file owner's name or number.
.It Fl h
When used with the
.Fl l
option, use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte
and Petabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to four or fewer
using base 2 for sizes.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
.It Fl i
For each file, print the file's file serial number (inode number).
.It Fl k
This has the same effect as setting environment variable
.Ev BLOCKSIZE
to 1024, except that it also nullifies any
.Fl h
options to its left.
.It Fl l
(The lowercase letter
.Dq ell . )
List files in the long format, as described in the
.Sx The Long Format
subsection below.
.It Fl m
Stream output format; list files across the page, separated by commas.
.It Fl n
Display user and group IDs numerically rather than converting to a user
or group name in a long
.Pq Fl l
output.
.It Fl o
Include the file flags in a long
.Pq Fl l
output.
This option is incompatible with
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
See
.Xr chflags 1
for a list of file flags and their meanings.
.It Fl p
Write a slash
.Pq Ql /
after each filename if that file is a directory.
.It Fl q
Force printing of non-graphic characters in file names as
the character
.Ql \&? ;
this is the default when output is to a terminal.
.It Fl r
Reverse the order of the sort.
.It Fl s
Display the number of blocks used in the file system by each file.
Block sizes and directory totals are handled as described in
.Sx The Long Format
subsection below, except (if the long format is not also requested)
the directory totals are not output when the output is in a
single column, even if multi-column output is requested.
.It Fl t
Sort by descending time modified (most recently modified first).
If two files have the same modification timestamp, sort their names
in ascending lexicographical order.
The
.Fl r
option reverses both of these sort orders.
.Pp
Note that these sort orders are contradictory: the time sequence is in
descending order, the lexicographical sort is in ascending order.
This behavior is mandated by
.St -p1003.2 .
This feature can cause problems listing files stored with sequential names on
FAT file systems, such as from digital cameras, where it is possible to have
more than one image with the same timestamp.
In such a case, the photos cannot be listed in the sequence in which
they were taken.
To ensure the same sort order for time and for lexicographical sorting, set the
environment variable
.Ev LS_SAMESORT
or use the
.Fl y
option.
This causes
.Nm
to reverse the lexicographical sort order when sorting files with the
same modification timestamp.
.It Fl u
Use time of last access,
instead of time of last modification
of the file for sorting
.Pq Fl t
or printing
.Pq Fl l .
.It Fl v
Sort following a natural ordering, using
.Xr strverscmp 3
instead of
.Xr strcoll 3
as the comparison function.
E.g., files lexicographically ordered
"bloem1", "bloem10", and "bloem9" would instead be ordered
"bloem1", "bloem9", and "bloem10", as one would perhaps expect.
.It Fl w
Force raw printing of non-printable characters.
This is the default
when output is not to a terminal.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.It Fl x
The same as
.Fl C ,
except that the multi-column output is produced with entries sorted
across, rather than down, the columns.
.It Fl y
When the
.Fl t
option is set, sort the alphabetical output in the same order as the time output.
This has the same effect as setting
.Ev LS_SAMESORT .
See the description of the
.Fl t
option for more details.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.It Fl 1
(The numeric digit
.Dq one . )
Force output to be
one entry per line.
This is the default when
output is not to a terminal.
.It Fl ,
(Comma) When the
.Fl l
option is set, print file sizes grouped and separated by thousands using the
non-monetary separator returned by
.Xr localeconv 3 ,
typically a comma or period.
If no locale is set, or the locale does not have a non-monetary separator, this
option has no effect.
This option is not defined in
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.El
.Pp
The
.Fl 1 , C , x ,
and
.Fl l
options all override each other; the last one specified determines
the format used.
.Pp
The
.Fl c , u ,
and
.Fl U
options all override each other; the last one specified determines
the file time used.
.Pp
The
.Fl S
and
.Fl t
options override each other; the last one specified determines
the sort order used.
.Pp
The
.Fl B , b , w ,
and
.Fl q
options all override each other; the last one specified determines
the format used for non-printable characters.
.Pp
The
.Fl H , L
and
.Fl P
options all override each other (either partially or fully); they
are applied in the order specified.
.Pp
By default,
.Nm
lists one entry per line to standard
output; the exceptions are to terminals or when the
.Fl C
or
.Fl x
options are specified.
.Pp
File information is displayed with one or more
.Ao blank Ac Ns s
separating the information associated with the
.Fl i , s ,
and
.Fl l
options.
.Ss The Long Format
If the
.Fl l
option is given, the following information
is displayed for each file:
file mode,
number of links, owner name, group name,
MAC label,
number of bytes in the file, abbreviated
month, day-of-month file was last modified,
hour file last modified, minute file last
modified, and the pathname.
.Pp
If the modification time of the file is more than 6 months
in the past or future, and the
.Fl D
or
.Fl T
are not specified,
then the year of the last modification
is displayed in place of the hour and minute fields.
.Pp
If the owner or group names are not a known user or group name,
or the
.Fl n
option is given,
the numeric ID's are displayed.
.Pp
If the file is a character special or block special file,
the device number for the file is displayed in the size field.
If the file is a symbolic link the pathname of the
linked-to file is preceded by
.Dq Li -> .
.Pp
The listing of a directory's contents is preceded
by a labeled total number of blocks used in the file system by the files
which are listed as the directory's contents
(which may or may not include
.Pa \&.
and
.Pa ..
and other files which start with a dot, depending on other options).
.Pp
The default block size is 512 bytes.
The block size may be set with option
.Fl k
or environment variable
.Ev BLOCKSIZE .
Numbers of blocks in the output will have been rounded up so the
numbers of bytes is at least as many as used by the corresponding
file system blocks (which might have a different size).
.Pp
The file mode printed under the
.Fl l
option consists of the
entry type and the permissions.
The entry type character describes the type of file, as
follows:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width 4n -offset indent -compact
.It Sy \-
Regular file.
.It Sy b
Block special file.
.It Sy c
Character special file.
.It Sy d
Directory.
.It Sy l
Symbolic link.
.It Sy p
.Tn FIFO .
.It Sy s
Socket.
.It Sy w
Whiteout.
.El
.Pp
The next three fields
are three characters each:
owner permissions,
group permissions, and
other permissions.
Each field has three character positions:
.Bl -enum -offset indent
.It
If
.Sy r ,
the file is readable; if
.Sy \- ,
it is not readable.
.It
If
.Sy w ,
the file is writable; if
.Sy \- ,
it is not writable.
.It
The first of the following that applies:
.Bl -tag -width 4n -offset indent
.It Sy S
If in the owner permissions, the file is not executable and
set-user-ID mode is set.
If in the group permissions, the file is not executable
and set-group-ID mode is set.
.It Sy s
If in the owner permissions, the file is executable
and set-user-ID mode is set.
If in the group permissions, the file is executable
and setgroup-ID mode is set.
.It Sy x
The file is executable or the directory is
searchable.
.It Sy \-
The file is neither readable, writable, executable,
nor set-user-ID nor set-group-ID mode, nor sticky.
(See below.)
.El
.Pp
These next two apply only to the third character in the last group
(other permissions).
.Bl -tag -width 4n -offset indent
.It Sy T
The sticky bit is set
(mode
.Li 1000 ) ,
but not execute or search permission.
(See
.Xr chmod 1
or
.Xr sticky 7 . )
.It Sy t
The sticky bit is set (mode
.Li 1000 ) ,
and is searchable or executable.
(See
.Xr chmod 1
or
.Xr sticky 7 . )
.El
.El
.Pp
The next field contains a
plus
.Pq Ql +
character if the file has an ACL, or a
space
.Pq Ql " "
if it does not.
The
.Nm
utility does not show the actual ACL;
use
.Xr getfacl 1
to do this.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables affect the execution of
.Nm :
.Bl -tag -width ".Ev CLICOLOR_FORCE"
.It Ev BLOCKSIZE
If this is set, its value, rounded up to 512 or down to a
multiple of 512, will be used as the block size in bytes by the
.Fl l
and
.Fl s
options.
See
.Sx The Long Format
subsection for more information.
.It Ev CLICOLOR
Use
.Tn ANSI
color sequences to distinguish file types.
See
.Ev LSCOLORS
below.
In addition to the file types mentioned in the
.Fl F
option some extra attributes (setuid bit set, etc.) are also displayed.
The colorization is dependent on a terminal type with the proper
.Xr termcap 5
capabilities.
The default
.Dq Li cons25
console has the proper capabilities,
but to display the colors in an
.Xr xterm 1 Pq Pa ports/x11/xterm ,
for example,
the
.Ev TERM
variable must be set to
.Dq Li xterm-color .
Other terminal types may require similar adjustments.
Colorization
is silently disabled if the output is not directed to a terminal
unless the
.Ev CLICOLOR_FORCE
variable is defined or
.Fl -color
is set to
.Dq always .
.It Ev CLICOLOR_FORCE
Color sequences are normally disabled if the output is not directed to
a terminal.
This can be overridden by setting this variable.
The
.Ev TERM
variable still needs to reference a color capable terminal however
otherwise it is not possible to determine which color sequences to
use.
.It Ev COLORTERM
See description for
.Ev CLICOLOR
above.
.It Ev COLUMNS
If this variable contains a string representing a
decimal integer, it is used as the
column position width for displaying
multiple-text-column output.
The
.Nm
utility calculates how
many pathname text columns to display
based on the width provided.
(See
.Fl C
and
.Fl x . )
.It Ev LANG
The locale to use when determining the order of day and month in the long
.Fl l
format output.
See
.Xr environ 7
for more information.
.It Ev LSCOLORS
The value of this variable describes what color to use for which
attribute when colors are enabled with
.Ev CLICOLOR
or
.Ev COLORTERM .
This string is a concatenation of pairs of the format
.Ar f Ns Ar b ,
where
.Ar f
is the foreground color and
.Ar b
is the background color.
When the background color is capitalized, the text is underlined.
.Pp
The color designators are as follows:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width 4n -offset indent -compact
.It Sy a
black
.It Sy b
red
.It Sy c
green
.It Sy d
brown
.It Sy e
blue
.It Sy f
magenta
.It Sy g
cyan
.It Sy h
light grey
.It Sy A
bold or underlined black, usually shows up as dark grey
.It Sy B
bold or underlined red
.It Sy C
bold or underlined green
.It Sy D
bold or underlined brown, usually shows up as yellow
.It Sy E
bold or underlined blue
.It Sy F
bold or underlined magenta
.It Sy G
bold or underlined cyan
.It Sy H
bold or underlined light grey; looks like bright white
.It Sy x
default foreground or background
.It Sy X
default foreground or background, with an underline or bold
.El
.Pp
Note that the above are standard
.Tn ANSI
colors.
The actual display may differ
depending on the color capabilities of the terminal in use.
.Pp
The order of the attributes are as follows:
.Pp
.Bl -enum -offset indent -compact
.It
directory
.It
symbolic link
.It
socket
.It
pipe
.It
executable
.It
block special
.It
character special
.It
executable with setuid bit set
.It
executable with setgid bit set
.It
directory writable to others, with sticky bit
.It
directory writable to others, without sticky bit
.El
.Pp
The default is
.Qq "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad" ,
i.e., blue foreground and
default background for regular directories, black foreground and red
background for setuid executables, etc.
.It Ev LS_COLWIDTHS
If this variable is set, it is considered to be a
colon-delimited list of minimum column widths.
Unreasonable
and insufficient widths are ignored (thus zero signifies
a dynamically sized column).
Not all columns have changeable widths.
The fields are,
in order: inode, block count, number of links, user name,
group name, flags, file size, file name.
.It Ev LS_SAMESORT
If this variable is set, the
.Fl t
option sorts the names of files with the same modification timestamp in the same
sense as the time sort.
See the description of the
.Fl t
option for more details.
.It Ev TERM
The
.Ev CLICOLOR
and
.Ev COLORTERM
functionality depends on a terminal type with color capabilities.
.It Ev TZ
The timezone to use when displaying dates.
See
.Xr environ 7
for more information.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std
.Sh EXAMPLES
List the contents of the current working directory in long format:
.Pp
.Dl $ ls -l
.Pp
In addition to listing the contents of the current working directory in
long format, show inode numbers, file flags (see
.Xr chflags 1 ) ,
and suffix each filename with a symbol representing its file type:
.Pp
.Dl $ ls -lioF
.Pp
List the files in
.Pa /var/log ,
sorting the output such that the mostly recently modified entries are
printed first:
.Pp
.Dl $ ls -lt /var/log
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
The group field is now automatically included in the long listing for
files in order to be compatible with the
.St -p1003.2
specification.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chflags 1 ,
.Xr chmod 1 ,
.Xr getfacl 1 ,
.Xr sort 1 ,
.Xr xterm 1 Pq Pa ports/x11/xterm ,
.Xr localeconv 3 ,
.Xr strcoll 3 ,
.Xr strftime 3 ,
.Xr strmode 3 ,
.Xr strverscmp 3 ,
.Xr termcap 5 ,
.Xr maclabel 7 ,
.Xr sticky 7 ,
.Xr symlink 7 ,
.Xr getfmac 8
.Sh STANDARDS
With the exception of options
.Fl g , n
and
.Fl o ,
the
.Nm
utility conforms to
.St -p1003.1-2001
and
.St -p1003.1-2008 .
The options
.Fl B , D , G , I , T , U , W , Z , b , h , v , w , y
and
.Fl ,
are non-standard extensions.
.Pp
The ACL support is compatible with
.Tn IEEE
Std\~1003.2c
.Pq Dq Tn POSIX Ns .2c
Draft\~17
(withdrawn).
.Sh HISTORY
An
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v1 .
.Pp
The
.Fl v
option was added in
.Fx 14.0 .
.Sh BUGS
To maintain backward compatibility, the relationships between the many
options are quite complex.
.Pp
The exception mentioned in the
.Fl s
option description might be a feature that was
based on the fact that single-column output
usually goes to something other than a terminal.
It is debatable whether this is a design bug.
.Pp
.St -p1003.2
mandates opposite sort orders for files with the same timestamp when
sorting with the
.Fl t
option.