LS: List Items in a Directory

How to use the ls command in linux to list files and directories.

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By. Jacob

Edited: 2022-06-03 08:38

The ls command is used to list the items in a directory. Typing it without supplying any arguments will list the files in the current directory.

If a directory path argument is supplied, the items located at the given path will be listed.

To list the files in a specific directory:

ls /var/www/ -l

The -l argument shows the result in a list format.

To only list files of a specific type, we can use the * asterisk wildcard. For example, to only list .mp3 files:

ls *.mp3 -l

The ls command can be combined with the watch command, the following will update a file list every 2nd second:

watch ls -s

You can even open the result in nano if you feel like having some fun with someone:

ls -l > /tmp/ls_out && nano /tmp/ls_out

Note. Files in /tmp/ are automatically deleted periodically, typically on boot.