How to list all the files in a directory in Unix?

How to list all the files in a directory in Unix?

You can use the ls command to list the files in any directory to which you have access. For a simple directory listing, at the Unix prompt, enter: ls. This command will list the names of all the files and directories in the current working directory.

How to limit the number of files in a directory?

You can limit the files that are described by using fragments of filenames and wildcards. Examples of this are: Lists files whose complete name is hello; if hello is a directory, displays the contents of the hello directory.

What does dot stand for in Unix file system?

Shows all files, including those beginning with . (a period). The dot is special in the Unix file system. Shows the rights to the file, the owner, the size in bytes, and the time of the last modification made to the file. (The l stands for “long”.)

How can I list files in another directory?

If you would like to list files in another directory, use the ls command along with the path to the directory. For example, if you are in your home directory and want to list the contents of the /etc directory, enter: ls /etc This will list the contents of the /etc directory in columns.

How to get the file name instead of the directory name?

You can use the -exec switch to run dirname and get the directory name instead of the file name. This has the added benefit of being POSIX compatible. This answer is shamelessly based on slm answer. It was an interesting approach, but it has a limitation if the file and/or directory names had special chars (space, semi-column…).

How to check if a directory is standard in Unix?

To the one which only shows you the directories: And if you’re in doubt, you can always use ls -ld command to confirm that returned entries are really standard Unix directories: That’s it! Have fun with Unix! We were unable to load Disqus Recommendations. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide.

How to run Bash command on one file?

For instance, to run the command on 1 file: The following bash code will pass $file to command where $file will represent every file in /dir -maxdepth 1 argument prevents find from recursively descending into any subdirectories.

How to find all files with a specific text using Linux shell?

The following linux command will search for a string stretch in all files within /etc/ directory including all sub-directories: The above grep command example lists all files containing string stretch. Meaning the lines with stretches, stretched etc. are also shown. Use grep’s -w option to show only a specific word:

How to list files in the root directory?

List files in the root directory. Type the ls / command to list the contents of the root directory: 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.

How to list files in a parent 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)

How to search only text files in Linux?

If you want the filenames without the file types, just add a final sed filter. You can filter-out unneeded file types by adding more -e ‘type’ options to the last grep command. If your xargs version supports the -d option, the commands above become simpler: Here’s how I’ve done it It only list text files.

How to get list of all file types?

So, to get a list of all file types in a directory, you can do: for file in dir/*; do done; : iterate through everything in dir ( dir is just an example, you should change this to the name of the actual directory you want to search through), saving each item in turn as $file file “$file” : run file on each of the items found.