LOW risk. Read-only operation, no system changes.

ls

Q: What does ls do?

List directory contents with optional detail and sorting. ls reads directory entries and displays them. With -l it shows permissions, ownership, size, and timestamps. -a reveals hidden dotfiles. Pipe to grep or awk for filtering. Colors are controlled by LS_COLORS.

List directory contents with optional detail and sorting.

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interactive breakdown — edit the command and press Explain

What it does

ls reads directory entries and displays them. With -l it shows permissions, ownership, size, and timestamps. -a reveals hidden dotfiles. Pipe to grep or awk for filtering. Colors are controlled by LS_COLORS.

Common flags

Flag	Meaning
`-l`	Long format: permissions, links, owner, size, date
`-a` `--all`	Show hidden files (starting with .)
`-h` `--human-readable`	Print sizes as K, M, G instead of bytes
`-t`	Sort by modification time, newest first
`-R` `--recursive`	List subdirectories recursively
`-S`	Sort by file size, largest first

Examples

ls -lah /var/logShow all files including hidden with human-readable sizes in /var/log · explain & risk-check →

ls -lt /tmp | head -20Show the 20 most recently modified files in /tmp · explain & risk-check →

ls -lS /usr/bin | tail -10Show the 10 smallest binaries in /usr/bin · explain & risk-check →

Pro tip

Use `ls --color=always | less -R` to get colorized output inside less without losing terminal color codes.

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Open the full explainer →More in Files & Archives

Reference text is hand-written and may be incomplete — check man ls for your version. Test destructive commands on a non-production system first.