ls */ explanation
 

hi
would someone please explain these arguments.I know what these do,but I want to know the meaning of these characters.For example I know "ls /" lists files/directories under root directory.but in "ls */" what * and / refer to?

ls */

and

ls -ld */


thank you

Just as "ls" lists the contents of the directory that you are in, "ls -l" gives you a list of the sub-directories and gives you information about those sub-directories (i.e. permissions, owner, size, etc.).
The command "ls */" shows not only the contents of the directory that you are in but also the contents of the sub-directories. Likewise, using "ls -ld */" will show the directory contents and information about the sub-directories.

There are some additional "ls" arguments that you might find helpful as well. Using "ls ~" will show the contents of your home directory. Using "ls ../" shows the contents of the parent directory (the parent of the directory you are in) and "ls /" lists the contents of the root directory.

It's your shell, not ls, that expands the "*", and ls simply acts on the argument list that the shell supplies. A simple "*" expands to a list of all non-dot files in the current directory, where the term "files" includes not only ordinary files but also directory files, device files, named pipes, ... -- all the things that can appear in a Unix file system. When you append a trailing slash, "*/", the list is restricted to just directory files. So, would invoke ls with a list of all of the non-dot directory files in the current directory, and ls would dutifully list the names and contents of each of those directories. If you include the "-ld" flags:then ls gets the same list as before, but the "-l" flag instructs it to produce a long-format listing, and the "-d" flag tells it to list only the names of directories, not their contents.

I like rknichols explanation. It's better than mine, but i'll try to make up for it with a lack of brevity...

I don't have formal knowledge of this and probably don't have the terms right, but it's easy enough to do a few experiments and comment on them.

Just an 'ls' command shows the contents of the current directory.

(The '-F' flag is just to tag an indicator onto the end of each directory entry listed: * is executable; / is a directory.)


When you list with an asterisk, 'ls *', it lists the current directory and goes one level deeper.


With a slash appended to a filename, it means "directory". (Like if you did a 'cp file directory/', it won't make a copy of "file" and call it "directory"; instead the slash forces 'cp' to make a file and place it into a directory called "directory".)

So 'ls */' says list off anything (*), but only if it is a directory (and go one level deep). So here we just get the contents of directory "tlpi-book".

Now if you use the '-l' flag, you would get a long listing - typically with mode, owner, group, size, date.

And if you use the '-d' flag, it lists the directory, not its contents. From 'man ls',
This explanation is pretty unscientific, but it illustrates your question for others that might be reading this post.