7 Quirky ‘ls’ Command Tricks Every Linux User Should Know

We have covered most of the things on ‘ls’ command in last two articles of our Interview series. This article is the last part of the ‘ls command‘ series. If you have not gone through last two articles of this series you may visit the links below.

1. 15 Basic ‘ls’ Command Examples in Linux
2. Sort Output of ‘ls’ Command By Last Modified Date and Time
3. 15 Interview Questions on Linux “ls” Command – Part 1
4. 10 Useful ‘ls’ Command Interview Questions – Part 2

7 Quirky ls Command Tricks

1. List the contents of a directory with time using various time styles.

To list the contents of a directory with times using style, we need to choose any of the below two methods.

# ls -l –time-style=[STYLE]               (Method A)

Note – The above switch (--time style must be run with switch -l, else it won’t serve the purpose).

# ls –full-time                           (Method B)

Replace [STYLE] with any of the below option.

full-iso
long-iso
iso
locale
+%H:%M:%S:%D

Note – In the above line H(Hour), M(Minute), S(Second), D(Date) can be used in any order.

Moreover you just choose those relevant and not all options. E.g., ls -l --time-style=+%H will show only hour.

ls -l --time-style=+%H:%M:%D will show Hour, Minute and date.

# ls -l --time-style=full-iso

ls Command Full Time Style

# ls -l --time-style=long-iso

Long Time Style Listing

# ls -l --time-style=iso

Time Style Listing

# ls -l --time-style=locale

Locale Time Style Listing

# ls -l --time-style=+%H:%M:%S:%D

Date and Time Style Listing

# ls --full-time

Full Style Time Listing

2. Output the contents of a directory in various formats such as separated by commas, horizontal, long, vertical, across, etc.

Contents of directory can be listed using ls command in various format as suggested below.

1. across
2. comma
3. horizontal
4. long
5. single-column
6. verbose
7. vertical

# ls –-format=across
# ls --format=comma
# ls --format=horizontal
# ls --format=long
# ls --format=single-column
# ls --format=verbose
# ls --format=vertical

Listing Formats of ls Command

3. Use ls command to append indicators like (/[email protected]|) in output to the contents of the directory.

The option -p with ‘ls‘ command will server the purpose. It will append one of the above indicator, based upon the type of file.

# ls -p

Append Indicators to Content

4. Sort the contents of directory on the basis of extension, size, time and version.

We can use options like --extension to sort the output by extension, size by extension --size, time by using extension -t and version using extension -v.

Also we can use option --none which will output in general way without any sorting in actual.

# ls --sort=extension
# ls --sort=size
# ls --sort=time
# ls --sort=version
# ls --sort=none

Sort Listing of Content by Options

5. Print numeric UID and GID for every contents of a directory using ls command.

The above scenario can be achieved using flag -n (Numeric-uid-gid) along with ls command.

# ls -n

Print Listing of Content by UID and GID

6. Print the contents of a directory on standard output in more columns than specified by default.

Well ls command output the contents of a directory according to the size of the screen automatically.

We can however manually assign the value of screen width and control number of columns appearing. It can be done using switch ‘--width‘.

# ls --width 80
# ls --width 100
# ls --width 150

List Content Based on Window Sizes

Note: You can experiment what value you should pass with width flag.

7. Include manual tab size at the contents of directory listed by ls command instead of default 8.

# ls --tabsize=[value]

List Content by Table Size

Note: Specify the [Value]= Numeric value.

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