Newbie question regarding ls command

Brainhose · 11-10-2014, 05:06 PM

Greetings; I need to use the ls command, and only the ls command to list all files in a directory that have a 'dot' in them. Not only hidden files but also any file with a name like File1.txt I am losing my marbles trying to figure this out, and seeing as my teacher said it was OK to get the answer from a forum as long as I divulged the fact, I'm turning here for help.

suicidaleggroll · 11-10-2014, 05:10 PM

Do you know how to use wildcards (* and ?)?

Brainhose · 11-10-2014, 05:53 PM

Hi, I know wild cards.
Don't hold it against me but I used to use MS-DOS quite a bit years ago.

I see that
ls -d .* --> Shows my hidden files
ls -d *.* --> shows my non-hidden files

Somehow I need to marry these two commands

evo2 · 11-10-2014, 06:46 PM

Hi,

you're on the right track. Did you know that you can pass multiple arguments to ls? Eg

Code:

ls foo bar

Evo2.

Brainhose · 11-10-2014, 06:54 PM

Hi,
I did not know that you could pass multiple arguments to ls like that.
Following your lead I tried: ls -d .* *.* and it seems to do the trick,
I spent a lot of time trying various expressions. It kills me that it may be something that simple.

Thanks.

evo2 · 11-10-2014, 07:10 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brainhose

I did not know that you could pass multiple arguments to ls like that.
Following your lead I tried: ls -d .* *.* and it seems to do the trick,

Excellent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brainhose

I spent a lot of time trying various expressions. It kills me that it may be something that simple.

You probably learnt a lot by putting in the effort to work this out. Don't think of it as a waste of time but as a part of the learning process.

You may have checked the man page but didn't realise what it was telling you. From man ls:

Code:

NAME
       ls - list directory contents

SYNOPSIS
       ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...

The clue here is the "..." after "[FILE]".

HTH,

Evo2.

Fred Caro · 11-10-2014, 07:34 PM

sorry, deleted

jpollard · 11-10-2014, 07:40 PM

It really depends on what you are doing. I would tend to use "find . -type d" rather than ls.

suicidaleggroll · 11-10-2014, 07:52 PM

Easiest way to list just directories is to put a trailing slash after the star. The trailing slash will make it so it only matches directories, and if you have -d in the ls flags it will print the directory names instead of their contents. eg:

Code:

ls -d */

Brainhose · 11-10-2014, 08:20 PM

howdy,
I noticed that if I don't use the -d switch lists the directory names followed by its contents, even if the contents don't have dots in the name.
Whereas, when I do, it lists only the file and directory names, which is what I'm looking for. I've come to realize that I way over thought this problem
and made it more difficult for myself than it needed to be. Cheers and thanks for your assistance.

Listing 1
ls -d $HOME .* *.*

.
..
.bash_history
.bash_logout
.bashrc
.cache
.compiz
.config
CPTN203_A2_Results_mercer.txt~
CPTN203_A3_Results_Mercer.txt
CPTN203_A3_Results_Mercer.txt~
.dmrc
examples.desktop
.gconf
.ICEauthority
.lesshst
.local
.mozilla
.profile
.vboxclient-clipboard.pid
.vboxclient-display.pid
.vboxclient-draganddrop.pid
.vboxclient-seamless.pid
.Xauthority
.xsession-errors
.xsession-errors.old

###################################################

Listing 2
ls $HOME .* *.*

.bash_history
.bash_logout
.bashrc
CPTN203_A2_Results_mercer.txt~
CPTN203_A3_Results_Mercer.txt
CPTN203_A3_Results_Mercer.txt~
.dmrc
examples.desktop
.ICEauthority
.lesshst
LS-D.txt
.profile
.vboxclient-clipboard.pid
.vboxclient-display.pid
.vboxclient-draganddrop.pid
.vboxclient-seamless.pid
.Xauthority
.xsession-errors
.xsession-errors.old

.:
Assignment_1
Assignment_2
Assignment_3
CPTN203_A2_Results_mercer.txt~
CPTN203_A3_Results_Mercer.txt
CPTN203_A3_Results_Mercer.txt~
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
examples.desktop
file1
file2
file3
LS-D.txt
LS_NO-D.txt
Music
passwdcopy
Pictures
Public
sb
SHARED
Templates
Videos

..:
bmercer
brian

.cache:
compizconfig-1
event-sound-cache.tdb.25702ac1b0e5d0083a41862c5429e044.x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
evolution
folks
gstreamer-1.0
ibus
logrotate
mozilla
oneconf
sso
thumbnails
unity
upstart
wallpaper

.compiz:
session

.config:
compiz-1
dconf
enchant
evolution
gedit
gnome-control-center
gnome-session
gtk-2.0
gtk-3.0
ibus
libaccounts-glib
nautilus
pulse
update-notifier
upstart
user-dirs.dirs
user-dirs.locale

.gconf:
apps

.local:
share

.mozilla:
extensions
firefox

grail · 11-10-2014, 08:44 PM

Please use [code][/code] tags to display data and code.

Glad to see your getting a handle on things