The ls command lists the contents of a directory. To see the contents of your working directory, enter:

ls

To list the contents of a different directory, add the relative or absolute name of the directory you want to look at, as in:

ls dira/dirb
ls abc/def/ghi

ls displays directory contents in alphabetic order. Typical ls output looks like:

bin         csrb.cpy    fifotest    makefl         temp.t
cc          etc         helplist    phones.com     totals

ls does not normally distinguish between directories, regular files, and special files. If you want a list of directory contents that distinguishes between file types, use the -F option. Entering:

ls –F

gives you output in the form:

bin/         csrb.cpy     fifotest|    makefl/         temp.t
cc/          etc/         helplist     phones.com*     totals/

The symbols following the file names indicate the type of file:

/

Directory

*

Executable file

|

FIFO special file

@

Symbolic link

&;

External link

If there is no character following the file name, the file is none of these types.

ls can list the contents of more than one directory at a time. For example:

ls dir1 dir2

lists the contents of the two given directories, one after the other. Try this command on a pair of directories to see what format ls uses.

The ls command with the -E option displays a character indicating whether or not the program is loaded from the shared library region. If the program is from the shared library region, an 'l' will appear as the fourth character in the second column. If the program is not from the shared library region, a '-' will appear. For example:

total 11
-rwxr-xr-x  -ps-    1 FRED  SYS1  101 Oct 02 16:30 james
-rwxrwxrwx  a-s-    1 FRED  SYS1  654 Oct 02 16:30 backup
-rwxr-xr-x  a---    1 FRED  SYS1   40 Oct 02 16:30 temp
-rwxr--r--  ap-l    1 FRED  SYS1  562 Oct 02 16:34 diag
-rwxr--r--  --sl    1 FRED  SYS1  106 Oct 02 16:53 bird