What's the "*" after all my files?

silence · 08-28-2004, 10:09 AM

It hasn't caused a problem yet but what the heck does the * mean after all my files when doing an ls It doesn't seam to hurt anything yet. Just annoying.

I am using Slackware 10 and am building an LFS system.

Thanx in advance.

Crunch · 08-28-2004, 10:28 AM

Some of the times I see this associated with binary files. I used to notice that too while I used Slackware not to long ago and I would, 'cd /bin; ls -l'. (I'd only notice this with a colored 'ls' in terminal only.) Although you are right, it doesn't hurt anything. I guess it is just there to indicate that it's a binary file as to a directory, or text file.

PenguinPwrdBox · 08-28-2004, 10:30 AM

They are usually bin executables.
Try this to be sure (you can do this with anything)

Code:

user@machine$ file <filename>

For instance:

Code:

adam@ExMachina:/boot$ file bzImage
bzImage: x86 boot sector
adam@ExMachina:/boot$ file boot_message.txt
boot_message.txt: ASCII English text

amfoster · 08-28-2004, 10:54 AM

The output is usually derived from an alias on the system.

Type alaias at the command prompt and see if you see something like
alias ls='ls -F'

Look at the man page on ls and you can see the options for coloring file types, etc.

The system very well may have this alias set in something like the system's
/etc/bashrc or /etc/bash.bashrc or even in your own environment files ( ~/.bashrc ) Simply comment it out, or put a line in your .bashrc that reads
unalias ls