How to list the directory content in Linux?


In the Linux operating system, there are two commands available to list the directory contents.

  • ls (list) command
  • dir (directory) command

Listing the contents of the file using ls command.

ls (list) – the ls command is used to list the directory contents in the Linux system. By default, the ls command displays the content of the current directory. The ls command is also available in EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) shell.

Syntax

The general syntax of the ls command is as follow −

$ ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Brief description of option available in the ls command.

Sr.No.Option & Description
1-a, --all
Display all files including hidden files
2--author
Display author of each file with -l option
3-B, --ignore-backups
Do not display backup file
4-d, --directory
List only directories, not their contents
5-l
Display long listing format
6-N, --literal
Display entry names without quoting
7-R, --recursive
Display subdirectories recursively
8-x 
Display list by lines instead of by columns
9-Z, --context
Print any security context of each file
10--help
Displays a help message and then exits.
11--version
Output version information and exit

To display the current directory content in the Linux/Unix system, we use the ls command as shown in below.

$ ls

Here, we will display the list contents of a directory in long listing format as well as the author of each file, date, and owner permission using -l option with the ls command in the Linux system.

vikash@tutorialspoint: ~ $ ls -l shadow
total 16
-rw-rw-r—1 vikash Vikash 34 Dec 26 19:28 file.txt
-rw-rw-r—1 vikash Vikash 34 Dec 26 19:28 file.txt
-rw-rw-r—1 vikash Vikash 34 Dec 26 19:38 file.txt
drwxrwxr-x2vikash vikash 4096 Dec 26 19:47 snow

dir (directory) – the dir command is used to list contents of the directory but the output of the dir command is not colored like ls command. In the Windows operating system the dir command is also used to list the directory contents. By default, the dir command lists the contents of a directory in a column and shorted vertically. The command is available in CLI (command line interface).

Syntax

The general syntax of the dir command

$ dir [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Brief description of options available in the dir command.

Sr.No.Option & Description
1-a, --all
Display all files including hidden files
2--author
Display author of each file with -l option
3-B, --ignore-backups
Do not display backup file
4-d, --directory
List only directories, not their contents
5-l
Display long listing format
6-N, --literal
Display entry names without quoting
7-R, --recursive
Display subdirectories recursively
8-x 
Display list by lines instead of by columns
9-Z, --context
Print any security context of each file
10--help
Displays a help message and then exits.
11--version
Output version information and exit.

To display current directory contents, also we use the dir command. The output of the dir command is not colored whereas the output of the ls command is colored.

$ dir

Updated on: 01-Jul-2021

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