What information is listed

These options affect the information that ls displays. By default, only file names are shown.

`-D'

`--dired'

With the long listing (`-l') format, print an additional line after the main output:

//DIRED// beg1 end1 beg2 end2 ...

The begN and endN are unsigned integers which record the byte position of the beginning and end of each file name in the output. This makes it easy for Emacs to find the names, even when they contain unusual characters such as space or newline, without fancy searching. If directories are being listed recursively (-R), output a similar line after each subdirectory:

//SUBDIRED// beg1 end1 ...

`-G'

`--no-group'

Inhibit display of group information in a long format directory listing. (This is the default in some non-GNU versions of ls, so we provide this option for compatibility.)

`-i'

`--inode'

Print the inode number (also called the file serial number and index number) of each file to the left of the file name. (This number uniquely identifies each file within a particular filesystem.)

`-l'

`--format=long'

`--format=verbose'

In addition to the name of each file, print the file type, permissions, number of hard links, owner name, group name, size in bytes, and timestamp (by default, the modification time). For files with a time more than six months old or more than one hour into the future, the timestamp contains the year instead of the time of day. For each directory that is listed, preface the files with a line `total blocks', where blocks is the total disk space used by all files in that directory. By default, 1024-byte blocks are used; if the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, 512-byte blocks are used (unless the `-k' option is given). The blocks computed counts each hard link separately; this is arguably a deficiency. The permissions listed are similar to symbolic mode specifications (see section Symbolic Modes). But ls combines multiple bits into the third character of each set of permissions as follows:

`s'

If the setuid or setgid bit and the corresponding executable bit are both set.

`S'

If the setuid or setgid bit is set but the corresponding executable bit is not set.

`t'

If the sticky bit and the other-executable bit are both set.

`T'

If the sticky bit is set but the other-executable bit is not set.

`x'

If the executable bit is set and none of the above apply.

`-'

Otherwise.

`-o'

Produce long format directory listings, but don't display group information. It is equivalent to using `--format=long' with `--no-group' . This option is provided for compatibility with other versions of ls.

`-s'

`--size'

Print the size of each file in 1024-byte blocks to the left of the file name. If the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, 512-byte blocks are used instead, unless the `-k' option is given (see section General output formatting). For files that are NFS-mounted from an HP-UX system to a BSD system, this option reports sizes that are half the correct values. On HP-UX systems, it reports sizes that are twice the correct values for files that are NFS-mounted from BSD systems. This is due to a flaw in HP-UX; it also affects the HP-UX ls program.

Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.