Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

dircolors

Synopsis

dircolors [options] [file]

Set the color options for the ls command. dircolors outputs shell commands which, when evaluated, update the LS_COLORS environment variable. If you specify a file, dircolors reads it to determine which colors to use. Otherwise, it uses a default set of colors. If the shell is not specified, dircolors checks the SHELL environment variable.

Options

The program takes three options in addition to the standard --help and --version flags:

-b, --sh, --bourne-shell

Use the Bourne shell syntax when setting the LS_COLORS variable.

-c, --csh, --c-shell

Use csh (C shell) syntax when setting the LS_COLORS variable.

-p, --print-database

Display the default colors. You can copy this information into a file and change it to suit your preferences, and then run the program with the file as its argument to set the colors to your new values.

Example

Set LS_COLORS using the default color database:

eval `dircolors`