What are "ls -l" 's columns?

jpollard · 03-04-2013, 06:24 PM

You are welcome.

In the very old days I used to design filesystems for a custom kernel. UNIX was so much easier to follow than things like the old DEC RSX filesystems. Current filesystems are becoming as complex (BTRFS is almost the same - it lacks file versioning, but has additional features). But the underlying principle still remains.

Directories are now keyed files instead of simple linear lists (allows faster updates, searching directories with lots of files)

cyn1cal sphere · 10-23-2017, 11:00 AM

Here is the precise explanation given by Info v5.1 on the 'ls -l' headers:

Quote:

'-l'
'--format=long'
'--format=verbose'
In addition to the name of each file, print the file type, file
mode bits, number of hard links, owner name, group name, size, and
timestamp (*note Formatting file timestamps:

, normally the
modification time. Print question marks for information that
cannot be determined.

Normally the size is printed as a byte count without punctuation,
but this can be overridden (*note Block size:

. For example, '-h'
prints an abbreviated, human-readable count, and
'--block-size="'1"' prints a byte count with the thousands
separator of the current locale.

For each directory that is listed, preface the files with a line
'total BLOCKS', where BLOCKS is the total disk allocation for all
files in that directory. The block size currently defaults to 1024
bytes, but this can be overridden (*note Block size:

. The BLOCKS
computed counts each hard link separately; this is arguably a
deficiency.

--
JD