Modifying the output of the ls command

valen_tino · 11-23-2009, 03:32 PM

Greetings to all,

I have an unusual request and here it goes.

On a RHEL 4.x system the output of a ls -l command is

Code:

-rw-r--r--  1 apps dba  428542 Dec  5  2005 file1
-rw-r--r--  1 apps dba  427561 Nov  8  2005 file2
-rw-r--r--  1 apps dba 1117081 Aug  9  2005 file3
-rw-r--r--  1 apps dba 3095798 Aug  9  2005 file4
-rw-r--r--  1 apps dba  107412 Aug  9  2005 file5

On a RHEL 5.x system the output of a ls -l command is

Quote:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 apps dba 6606 Sep 9 07:27 file1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 apps dba 18625 Sep 9 07:27 file2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 apps dba 514568 Sep 9 07:27 file3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 apps dba 2594142 Sep 9 07:27 file4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 apps dba 431433 Sep 9 07:27 file5

The problem that I have is that there are 2 blank spaces after -rw-r--r-- in RHEL 4.x and only 1 space in RHEL 5.x. Our mainframe job does not like this and spits errors while reading the file listing.

The question that I have is can the output of the ls command in RHEL 5.x be altered to include that extra space just like RHEL 4.x? We would prefer to go this route rather than change the mainframe job at this time.

I've been scratching my head but unable to get any leads. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

acid_kewpie · 11-23-2009, 03:49 PM

well that is *NOT* the normal output for ls, must be something in your environment doing that somehow. does this happen as all users?

rweaver · 11-23-2009, 03:52 PM

You could reformat the results with sed or awk.

Although there may be an additional underlying issue with the term you're using in rh5 since that isn't normal output for a rh5 system (justification is off, etc. Although there is only one space in rh5 even when the output is normal.)

Off the top of my head...

Code:

ls -l | awk '{print $1, "", $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9}'

Although you'd be better off with the printf to make the justifications correct and such.

valen_tino · 11-23-2009, 03:55 PM

Thanks for the quick response.

What is not normal - having 2 spaces in RHEL 4.x or the 1 space in RHEL 5.x? What should the normal behavior be?

This behavior appears to be consistent across the few RHEL 4 and RHEL 5 servers that I checked.

pixellany · 11-23-2009, 04:02 PM

It's more complicated than that. Here is a portion of my ls -l in $HOME:

Code:

drwx------  3 mherring users 4096 2009-11-23 08:52 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x  2 mherring users 4096 2009-11-23 12:37 Downloads
-rw-r--r--  1 mherring users  469 2009-10-29 17:51 cap      
drwxr-xr-x 13 mherring users 4096 2009-11-23 12:36 docs

Note 2 spaces except where the first number has 2 digits.

To simply get ls -l to always have 2 spaces, try this:

Code:

ls -l|sed 's/ \+/  /1'

(Replaces the first occurence of 1 or more spaces with exactly 2 spaces.)

You could alias this to---eg---"ls2"

You can also make the number of spaces dependent on the number of digits following.

valen_tino · 11-23-2009, 04:09 PM

Aah...the sed worked like a charm. I will run it by the mainframe guys and see how that goes. If that goes well I will create the alias as you mentioned. Thanks.