Ubuntu Unleashed 2013 Edition: Covering 12.10 and 13.04, Eighth Edition

Listing Files in the Current Directory with ls

The ls command, like ln, is one of those you expect to be very straightforward. It lists files, but how many options can it possibly have? In true Linux style, the answer is many, although again you need only know a few to wield great power!

The basic usage is simply ls, which lists the files and directories in the current location. You can filter that using normal wildcards, so all these are valid:

matthew@seymour:~$ ls *matthew@seymour:~$ ls *.txtmatthew@seymour:~$ ls my*ls *.txt *.xml

Any directories that match these filters are recursed into one level. That is, if you run ls my* and you have the files myfile1.txt and myfile2.txt and a directory mystuff, the matching files are printed first. Then ...