List information about FILEs, by default the current directory.

SYNTAX
ls [Options]… [File]…

KEY
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuSUX nor –sort.

-a, –all Do not hide entries starting with .

-A, –almost-all Do not list implied . and ..

-b, –escape Print octal escapes for nongraphic characters

–block-size=SIZE Use SIZE-byte blocks

-B, –ignore-backups Do not list implied entries ending with ~

-c Sort by change time; with -l: show ctime

-C List entries by columns

–color[=WHEN] Control whether color is used to distinguish file
types. WHEN may be &qt;never&qt;&qt;, &qt;always&qt;&qt;, or &qt;auto&qt;&qt;

-d, –directory List directory entries instead of contents

-D, –dired Generate output designed for Emacs&qt;&qt; dired mode

-f Do not sort, enable -aU, disable -lst

-F, –classify Append indicator (one of */=@|) to entries

–format=WORD Across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l,
single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C

–full-time List both full date and full time

-g (ignored)

-G, –no-group Inhibit display of group information

-h, –human-readable Print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)
-H, –si Likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024

–indicator-style=WORD Append indicator with style WORD to entry names:
none (default), classify (-F), file-type (-p)

-i, –inode Print index number of each file

-I, –ignore=PATTERN Do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN

-k, –kilobytes Like –block-size=1024

-l Use a long listing format

-L, –dereference List entries pointed to by symbolic links

-m Fill width with a comma separated list of entries

-n, –numeric-uid-gid List numeric UIDs and GIDs instead of names

-N, –literal Print raw entry names (don&qt;&qt;t treat e.g. control
characters specially)

-o Use long listing format without group info

-p, –file-type Append indicator (one of /=@|) to entries

-q, –hide-control-chars Print ? instead of non graphic characters

–show-control-chars Show non graphic characters as-is (default)

-Q, –quote-name Enclose entry names in double quotes
–quoting-style=WORD Use quoting style WORD for entry names:
literal, shell, shell-always, c, escape

-r, –reverse Reverse order while sorting

-R, –recursive List subdirectories recursively

-s, –size Print size of each file, in blocks

-S Sort by file size

–sort=WORD time -t, version -v, status -c
size -S, extension -X, none -U
atime -u, access -u, use -u

–time=WORD Show time as WORD instead of modification time:
atime, access, use, ctime or status;
also use this as a sort key if –sort=time

-t sort by modification time

-T, –tabsize=COLS assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8

-u sort by last access time; with -l: show atime

-U do not sort; list entries in directory order

-v sort by version

-w, –width=COLS assume screen width instead of current value

-x list entries by lines instead of by columns

-X sort alphabetically by entry extension

-1 list one file per line

–help display help and exit

–version output version information and exitThe most common options are -a (all files) and -l (long or details)

When output to file the files are listed one per line.

By default, colour is not used to distinguish types of files. That is equivalent to using –color=none.
Using the –color option without the optional WHEN argument is equivalent to using –color=always.
With –color=auto, color codes are output only if standard output is connected to a terminal (tty).

EXAMPLES

ls -al

total 109
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:12 ./
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:12 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:14 bin/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 Jun 9 20:32 boot/
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 36864 Jul 12 10:26 dev/
drwxr-xr-x 34 root root 4096 Jul 12 10:25 etc/
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:28 home/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:18 lib/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 16384 Jun 9 21:01 lost+found/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 24 1999 misc/
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Jun 9 20:32 mnt/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 23 1999 opt/
dr-xr-xr-x 63 root root 0 Jul 12 11:25 proc/
drwx—— 13 root root 4096 Jul 12 01:00 root/
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:22 sbin/
drwxrwxrwt 9 root root 4096 Jul 12 13:48 tmp/
drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:07 usr/
drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4096 Jun 9 21:22 var/

the first column under long (-l) is the file type
&qt;&qt;d&qt;&qt; for directory(folder)
&qt;&qt;f&qt;&qt; for file
# list ALL subdirectories
ls *