"ls" command is one of the most frequently used commands in Linux or Unix. You will use the "ls" command to list all the files and sub-directories within your current directory. No matter you are the Linux adminstrator or system developer, you will use the "ls" command frequently in your daily works. If you know the "ls" command and tricks well, it will greatly improve your work efficiently.

In this tutorial, we will show you some practical "ls" command usage and tricks. We will go through them in examples with screen shots.

1. List All the Files and Directoties in Linux

This is the simplest usage of the "ls" command. In the Linux terminal console, you just type the "ls" command without any additional parameters. All the files and directories within the currently directory will be lised.

2. List All the Files in another directory

To list the files and directories of another directory, you can type the following command:



For example, you may list the files of the directory: /usr/lib as below



To list the files of the root directory:



You can also list the files of the parent directory by typing "ls .."

3. List All the Files in the home directory

To list the files and directories of the home directory, you will use the command:

4. Only list out the directories of the current directory

To list the files and directories of another directory, you can type the command:

5. Listing all the details of files and directories of the current directory

In Linux, if you want to display all the details such as the file name, file permissions, file size, date modified, etc of the files and directories, you can use the command:

6. Listing the hidden files of the current directory

In Linux, for the file name starting with ".", they will not be displayed with normal "ls" command. To list those hidden files, you need to use the command:

7. Listing the files and directories in the revised order

In Linux, to display the files and directories in the reverse order, you can use the command:

8. Listing the files and directories recursively

In Linux, you can list all files and directories with their corresponding subdirectories in the directory tree format. To do that, you can use the command:

9. Listing the files and directories with the latest modified display at last

In many cases, you need to list all files and directories with their latest modification date displayed at the last of the list. To do that, you can use the command:

10. Listing the files and sory by the file size

In Linux, you can list all files and directories by sorting with their file size in descending order (biggest to smallest). To do that, you can use the command:

Conclusion

This tutorial shared the 10 most commonly used "ls" command in the Linux environment. Actually, there are plenty of commands and combinations you can try and explore in the Linux world. Within the Linux console, you can type or to understand the detail usage of the "ls" command. Let's try it out!