Comments on: Using the ls command http://mac.lowetechlabs.com/2008/10/06/using-the-ls-command/ Apple and Macintosh from Lowe Tech Labs Sun, 20 May 2012 09:42:37 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Brandon http://mac.lowetechlabs.com/2008/10/06/using-the-ls-command/#comment-2218 Brandon Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:28:42 +0000 http://mac.lowetechlabs.com/2008/10/06/using-the-ls-command/#comment-2218 One essential option you didn't discuss is -d. In your example, what if you want to look at the owner or permissions for directory1? You would type ls -l and look in the long list. This does not work very well if your directory contains many items. If you had directory1 through directory1000 and wanted to see who owns directory500 you might first type "ls -l directory500" hoping to see that information. But all you will see is a long listing of the contents of directory500, not the owner, permissions, etc of the directory itself. Typing ls -ld directory500 will prevent ls from recursing into the directory and will print information about the directory itself. This also applies to symbolic links. If you want to see information about a link and where it points rather than seeing information about the object the link points to, you can use -d. This comes up often when inspecting links or on a multiuser system when you want to check the permissions of someone's home directory. One essential option you didn’t discuss is -d. In your example, what if you want to look at the owner or permissions for directory1? You would type ls -l and look in the long list. This does not work very well if your directory contains many items. If you had directory1 through directory1000 and wanted to see who owns directory500 you might first type “ls -l directory500″ hoping to see that information. But all you will see is a long listing of the contents of directory500, not the owner, permissions, etc of the directory itself. Typing ls -ld directory500 will prevent ls from recursing into the directory and will print information about the directory itself. This also applies to symbolic links. If you want to see information about a link and where it points rather than seeing information about the object the link points to, you can use -d.

This comes up often when inspecting links or on a multiuser system when you want to check the permissions of someone’s home directory.

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