Commands using ls (517)


  • 1
    find / -perm +6000 -type f -exec ls -ld {} \;
    aguslr · 2011-10-14 22:19:58 5
  • This will list the files in a directory, then zip each one with the original filename individually. video1.wmv -> video1.zip video2.wmv -> video2.zip This was for zipping up large amounts of video files for upload on a Windows machine.


    1
    ls -1 | awk ' { print "zip "$1".zip " $1 } ' | sh
    kaywhydub · 2011-12-14 20:30:56 6

  • 1
    ls -d $PWD/*
    putnamhill · 2011-12-16 19:12:55 3

  • 1
    ls -d1 $PWD/{.*,*}
    bunam · 2011-12-17 12:25:15 2

  • 1
    ls -d1 $PWD/*
    www · 2011-12-31 14:46:41 3

  • 1
    find <directory> -type f -printf "%T@\t%p\n"|sort -n|cut -f2|xargs ls -lrt
    rik · 2012-03-02 12:51:06 3
  • Here's an annotated version of the command, using full-names instead of aliases. It is exactly equivalent to the short-hand version. # Recursively list all the files in the current directory. Get-ChildItem -Recurse | # Filter out the sub-directories themselves. Where-Object { return -not $_.PsIsContainer; } | # Group the resulting files by their extensions. Group-Object Extension | # Pluck the Name and Count properties of each group and define # a custom expression that calculates the average of the sizes # of the files in that group. # The back-tick is a line-continuation character. Select-Object ` Name, Count, @{ Name = 'Average'; Expression = { # Average the Length (sizes) of the files in the current group. return ($_.Group | Measure-Object -Average Length).Average; } } | # Format the results in a tabular view, automatically adjusted to # widths of the values in the columns. Format-Table -AutoSize ` @{ # Rename the Name property to something more sensible. Name = 'Extension'; Expression = { return $_.Name; } }, Count, @{ # Format the Average property to display KB instead of bytes # and use a formatting string to show it rounded to two decimals. Name = 'Average Size (KB)'; # The "1KB" is a built-in constant which is equal to 1024. Expression = { return $_.Average / 1KB }; FormatString = '{0:N2}' } Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -r | ?{-not $_.psiscontainer} | group extension | select name, count, @{n='average'; e={($_.group | measure -a length).average}} | ft -a @{n='Extension'; e={$_.name}}, count, @{n='Average Size (KB)'; e={$_.average/1kb}; f='{0:N2}'}
    brianpeiris · 2012-03-13 17:58:10 9
  • This will generate the same output without changing the current directory, and filepath will be relative to the current directory. Note: it will (still) fail if your iTunes library is in a non-standard location.


    1
    ls "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications" > filepath
    minnmass · 2012-05-04 09:51:59 49
  • Nothing too magical here, just uses pngcrush to losslessly compress all your pngs!


    1
    ls *.png | while read line; do pngcrush -brute $line compressed/$line; done
    waffleboi9 · 2012-07-17 20:20:49 5
  • Sometimes I would like to see hidden files, prefix with a period, but some files or folders I never want to see (and really wish I could just remove all together). Show Sample Output


    1
    alias ls='if [[ -f .hidden ]]; then while read l; do opts+=(--hide="$l"); done < .hidden; fi; ls --color=auto "${opts[@]}"'
    expelledboy · 2012-08-12 13:10:23 5

  • 1
    ln -s /base/* /target && ls -l /target
    mattcen · 2012-08-22 11:27:40 5
  • Show the UUID-based alternate device names of ZEVO-related partitions on Darwin/OS X. Adapted from the lines by dbrady at http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=700#p700 and following the disk device naming scheme at http://zevo.getgreenbytes.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.DiskDeviceNames Show Sample Output


    1
    ls /dev/disk* | xargs -n 1 -t sudo zdb -l | grep GPTE_
    grahamperrin · 2012-10-06 20:19:45 5
  • Substitute for #11720 Can probably be even shorter and easier. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/ | grep '/sda$' | grep -o 'ata[^ ]*'
    michelsberg · 2013-01-16 17:28:11 7
  • I find it useful, when cleaning up deleting unwanted files to make more space, to list in size order so I can delete the largest first. Note that using "q" shows files with non-printing characters in name. In this sample output (above), I found two copies of the same iso file both of which are immediate "delete candidates" for me. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -qahlSr # list all files in size order - largest last
    mpb · 2013-03-13 09:52:07 29
  • zsh: list of files sorted by size, greater than 100mb, head the top 5. '**/*' is recursive, and the glob qualifiers provide '.' = regular file, 'L' size, which is followed by 'm' = 'megabyte', and finally '+100' = a value of 100


    1
    ls -Sh **/*(.Lm+100) | tail -5
    khayyam · 2013-03-21 20:22:11 4
  • make usable on OSX with filenames containing spaces. note: will still break if filenames contain newlines... possible, but who does that?!


    1
    svn ls -R | egrep -v -e "\/$" | tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0 svn blame | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr
    rymo · 2013-04-10 19:37:53 5
  • Like top, but for files


    1
    watch -d -n 2 'df; ls -FlAt;'
    G2G · 2013-09-17 05:44:47 6
  • Sorts by latest modified files by looking to current directory and all subdirectories Show Sample Output


    1
    find . -name '*pdf*' -print0 | xargs -0 ls -lt | head -20
    fuats · 2013-10-03 21:58:51 9
  • displays a list of all file extensions in current directory and how many files there are of each type of extension in ascending order (case insensitive) Show Sample Output


    1
    ls | tr [:upper:] [:lower:] | grep -oP '\.[^\.]+$' | sort | uniq -c | sort
    icefyre · 2014-01-30 11:37:27 10

  • 1
    npm ls -g|grep "^[&#9500;&#9492;]\(.\+\)\?[&#9516;&#9472;] "
    lucasmezencio · 2014-02-03 21:50:39 7
  • Very quick! Based only on the content sizes and the character counts of filenames. If both numbers are equal then two (or more) directories seem to be most likely identical. if in doubt apply: diff -rq path_to_dir1 path_to_dir2 AWK function taken from here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2912224/find-duplicates-lines-based-on-some-delimited-fileds-on-line Show Sample Output


    1
    find . -type d| while read i; do echo $(ls -1 "$i"|wc -m) $(du -s "$i"); done|sort -s -n -k1,1 -k2,2 |awk -F'[ \t]+' '{ idx=$1$2; if (array[idx] == 1) {print} else if (array[idx]) {print array[idx]; print; array[idx]=1} else {array[idx]=$0}}'
    knoppix5 · 2014-02-25 22:50:09 27
  • Tested with GNU and BSD ls. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -la | grep ^l
    gatopan · 2014-08-11 03:06:48 8
  • With this version, you can list all symlinks in the current directory (no subdirectories), and have it list both the link and the target. Show Sample Output


    1
    ls -l `find ~ -maxdepth 1 -type l -print`
    skittleys · 2015-01-04 02:36:47 7
  • list all txt files order by time, newest first


    1
    ls -lt --time=atime *.txt
    miccaman · 2015-05-21 21:03:44 10
  • Adding course name prefix to lecture pdfs Show Sample Output


    1
    ls *.pdf | while read file; do newfile="CS749__${file}"; mv "${file}" "${newfile}"; done;
    programmer · 2016-04-19 11:04:47 16
  • ‹ First  < 6 7 8 9 10 >  Last ›

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. That way others can gain from your CLI wisdom and you from theirs too. All commands can be commented on, discussed and voted up or down.

Share Your Commands


Check These Out

recursively change file name from uppercase to lowercase (or viceversa)
easier way to recursively change files to lowercase using rename instead

Record live sound in Vorbis (eg for bootlegs or to take audio notes)
This will record the capture channel of your soundcard, directly encoded in Ogg Vorbis, in stereo at quality 5 (I'm using this to record live jam sessions from my line input). You can choose which device to capture (eg. line input, microphone or PCM output) with $ alsamixer -V capture You can do the same thing and live encode in MP3 or FLAC if you wish, just check FLAC and LAME man pages.

Url Encode

stop man page content from disappearing on exit
stop man page content from disappearing on exit echo "export LESS='FiX'" >> ~/.bashrc man bash 'q'uit out of man page content will stay on screen

Find usb device
I often use it to find recently added ou removed device, or using find in /dev, or anything similar. Just run the command, plug the device, and wait to see him and only him

backup with mysqldump a really big mysql database to a remote machine over ssh
backup big mysql db to remote machine over ssh. "--skip-opt" option is needed when you can?t allocate full database in ram.

Remove annoying files from recently extracted zip archive
Inspired by http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/2573/remove-all-files-previously-extracted-from-a-tar.gz-file. .... yet for zip files

Set OS X X11 to use installed Mathematica fonts

bash shell expansion
The expansion {,} in bash will repeat the given string once for each item seperated by commas. The given command will result in the following being run: cp /really/long/path/and/file/name /really/long/path/and/file/name-`date -I` These can be embedded as needed, ex: rm file{1,2,3{1,2,3}} would delete the files file1, file2, file31, file32, file32, and no other files.

List of commands you use most often


Stay in the loop…

Follow the Tweets.

Every new command is wrapped in a tweet and posted to Twitter. Following the stream is a great way of staying abreast of the latest commands. For the more discerning, there are Twitter accounts for commands that get a minimum of 3 and 10 votes - that way only the great commands get tweeted.

» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu3
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu10

Subscribe to the feeds.

Use your favourite RSS aggregator to stay in touch with the latest commands. There are feeds mirroring the 3 Twitter streams as well as for virtually every other subset (users, tags, functions,…):

Subscribe to the feed for: