Listing Files

Seeing What's There

Before you can work with files, you need to know what exists. The ls command lists the contents of a directory.

Basic Usage

ls

This lists the files and directories in your current working directory, one per line (when output is not a terminal).

Common Flags

Flags (also called options) modify a command's behavior. They start with a dash:

Example with -l:

ls -l

Output:

drwxr-xr-x 1 user user      0 Jan  1 00:00 docs
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user     14 Jan  1 00:00 hello.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user     34 Jan  1 00:00 notes.txt

The first character shows the type: d for directory, - for file. The next nine characters are permissions.

Listing a Specific Path

You can give ls a path to list:

ls /etc

Your Task

Run ls to list the contents of the current directory.