[ray@domain ~]$ ls
Desktop helloworld.txt
You can also retrieve a list of the files in another directory by adding the directory name, ex
[ray@domain ~]$ ls /home/ray
movies pictures documents music public desktop
Using ls by itself will show you the names of tiles in the directory, if you want all details you can add the -l flag to the command, ex.
[ray@domain ~]$ ls -l
total 16 files
drwxr-xr-x 2 ray staff 4096 5 Sep 15:21 Desktop
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ray staff 13 8 Sep 07:30 Hello World.txt
The data found above:
- The first column represents the file permissions in the format discussed in section 1.2 File Persmissions. The first character tells us if the file is a directory or other (d equals a directory). The next nine characters show the permissions to (in order) Owner, Group, and Others.
- The next column only useful for directories, as it tells you the number of files within it.
- The next two columns identifies the owner and group
- Next column is the size of the files in bytes
- Next is the date and time of last modified, Hello World.txt above is modified September 8 at 07:30
- Finally, the name of file
Hidden files in Linux start with a period. If you want to hide the Hello World.txt file you would change the name to .Hello World.txt (mind the dot in front of the filename!). Programs store user-specific configuration files by hidden using the period in front of the file. To see hidden files you use the flag -a, which can be used in conjunction with -l flag, ex.
[ray@domain ~]$ ls -la
total 16 files
drwx------ 13 ray staff 714 19 Jun 20:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root admin 306 17 June 14:44 ..
-re------- 1 ray staff 14 08 June 15:55 .trash
drwxr-xr-x 2 ray staff 4096 5 Sep 15:21 Desktop
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ray staff 13 8 Sep 07:30 Hello World.txt
At the top of the listing are two directories, "." and "..", These are shortcuts to the current directory and the parent directory, respectively we will have a look at theses later on.
