Viewing directories in linux

Linux Commands for Navigating and Viewing Directories

Linux has hundreds of commands available, but to get around the system, view and edit text files we only need a handful. We’ll take a look here at the basic commands that are essential in setting up the dedicated server (download a free copy of Linux to test drive it).

Notice the convention of the $ sign in the examples given. This means that you are logged in to your Linux server and at the command prompt. From this point, simply type in the command and press enter. Anything in square brackets represents an instance that you’ll substitute with an appropriate value – so for instance [username] will be substituted with your username.

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Linux Commands: Navigating

Use this command to find out where you are in the directory structure. When you log on to Linux, your starting directory is always your home directory, so you’ll be in /home/[your username] as any other user than root, or /root if you’re logged in as root. But, this can be useful if you ever lose track!

A workhorse command, this is used to change the current directory. The directory named can be relative to the current directory, or absolute. To move relatively, using .. will move you up one level, or typing a directory name will move you into a subdirectory of the current. So, for example, if you’re in the directory /home/[username] and want to move to the directory /etc, you can do it in a couple of ways. If you type:

You’ll be moved up one directory, so you’ll now be in the /home directory. Repeat the command, and you’ll be in the root (/) directory. Then, type:

Now, you’ll be in the /etc directory. However, this is a bit cumbersome, but absolute addressing can achieve the same move in one step by simply preceding the address with a forward slash /. When you do this, the directory typed will be treated as relative to the root directory. So, from the example above, to move from /home/[username] directly to the /etc folder, enter:

This will move the current directory to the /etc directory in one step. To move back, use:

You can also use the following with cd:

Moves up two directories, and you can extend this as far back as required.

Moves to the previous working directory.

Using cd without an argument moves the working directory straight to the user’s home directory. (Note: the cd command is synonymous with the chdir command.)

This is the list command, so that you can view the contents of a directory including all files and subdirectories. If you don’t specify a directory then the current directory is assumed, but you can give an argument to a relative or absolute location.

In this case the directory specified has its contents listed. The directory reference can be absolute or relative.

• Advantage to Shared Web Hosting
• Shared Hosting Issues – Shared Bandwidth and Server Resources
• The Ins and Outs of Dedicated Web Hosting
• When To Move To A Dedicated Server
• Choosing a Dedicated Server for your Website
• Managing and Operating a Dedicated Server Over the Internet Using Online Control Panels
• Accessing the Linux Operating System on Dedicated Servers with PuTTY or SSH
• How to Create a Secure Password
• Using Sudo for Super User Access to Root Privileges in Linux
• The Linux Directory Structure
• Linux Commands for Navigating and Viewing Directories
• Creating, Moving, Renaming and Copying Files and Directories in Linux
• Find, View and Delete Files and Directories Using Linux Commands
• Using vi to Edit Text Files on A Linux Dedicated Server

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The Linux LS Command – How to List Files in a Directory + Option Flags

Bolaji Ayodeji

Since the creation of Unix in the 1970s, a lot of operating systems have used it as their foundation. Many of these operating systems failed, while others succeeded.

Linux is one of the most popular Unix based operating systems. It’s open source, and is used all over the world across many industries.

One amazing feature of the Linux operating system is the Command Line Interface (CLI) which allows users to interact with their computer from a shell. The Linux shell is a REPL (Read, Evaluate, Print, Loop) environment where users can enter a command and the shell runs it and returns a result.

The ls command is one of the many Linux commands that allow a user to list files or directories from the CLI.

In this article, we’ll go in depth on the ls command and some of the most important flags you’ll need day-to-day.

Prerequisites

• A computer with directories and files
• Have one of the Linux distros installed
• Basic knowledge of navigating around the CLI
• A smile on your face 🙂

The Linux ls Command

The ls command is used to list files or directories in Linux and other Unix-based operating systems.

Just like you navigate in your File explorer or Finder with a GUI, the ls command allows you to list all files or directories in the current directory by default, and further interact with them via the command line.

Launch your terminal and type ls to see this in action:

How to list Files in a Directory with Options

The ls command also accepts some flags (also known as options) which are additional information that changes how files or directories are listed in your terminal.

In other words, flags change how the ls command works:

PS: The word contents used in throughout the article refers to the files and directories being listed, not the actual contents of the files/directories ?

List files in the current working directory

Type the ls command to list the contents of the current working directory:

List files in another directory

Type the ls [directory path here] command to list the contents of another directory:

List files in the root directory

Type the ls / command to list the contents of the root directory:

List files in the parent directory

Type the ls .. command to list the contents of the parent directory one level above. Use ls ../.. for contents two levels above:

List files in the user’s home directory (/home/user)

Type the ls ~ command to list the contents in the users’s home directory:

List only directories

Type the ls -d */ command to list only directories:

List files with subdirectories

Type the ls * command to list the contents of the directory with it’s subdirectories:

List files recursively

Type the ls -R command to list all files and directories with their corresponding subdirectories down to the last file:

If you have a lot of files, this can take a very long time to complete as every single file in each directory will be printed out. You can instead specify a directory to run this command in, like so: ls Downloads -R

List files with their sizes

Type the ls -s command (the s is lowercase) to list files or directories with their sizes:

List files in long format

Type the ls -l command to list the contents of the directory in a table format with columns including:

• content permissions
• number of links to the content
• owner of the content
• group owner of the content
• size of the content in bytes
• last modified date / time of the content
• file or directory name

List files in long format with readable file sizes

Type the ls -lh command to list the files or directories in the same table format above, but with another column representing the size of each file/directory:

Note that sizes are listed in bytes (B), megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB), or terabytes (TB) when the file or directory’s size is larger than 1024 bytes.

List files including hidden files

Type the ls -a command to list files or directories including hidden files or directories. In Linux, anything that begins with a . is considered a hidden file:

List files in long format including hidden files

Type the ls -l -a or ls -a -l or ls -la or ls -al command to list files or directories in a table format with extra information including hidden files or directories:

List files and sort by date and time

Type the ls -t command to list files or directories and sort by last modified date in descending order (biggest to smallest).

You can also add a -r flag to reverse the sorting order like so: ls -tr :

List files and sort by file size

Type the ls -S (the S is uppercase) command to list files or directories and sort by size in descending order (biggest to smallest).

You can also add a -r flag to reverse the sorting order like so: ls -Sr :

List files and output the result to a file

Type the ls > output.txt command to print the output of the preceding command into an output.txt file. You can use any of the flags discussed before like -la — the key point here is that the result will be outputted into a file and not logged to the command line.

Then you can use the file as you see fit, or log the contents of the file with cat output.txt :

Conclusion

There are tons of other commands and combinations you can explore to list out files and directories based on your needs. One thing to remember is the ability to combine multiple commands together at once.

Imagine you want to list a file in long format, including hidden files, and sort by file size. The command would be ls -alS , which is a combination of ls -l , ls -a , and ls -S .

If you forget any command or are unsure about what to do, you can run ls —help or man ls which will display a manual with all possible options for the ls command:

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