Viewing directories in linux

ls command in Linux/Unix

ls is a Linux shell command that lists directory contents of files and directories.

ls syntax

ls command options

ls command main options:

option	description
ls -a	list all files including hidden file starting with ‘.’
ls —color	colored list [=always/never/auto]
ls -d	list directories — with ‘ */’
ls -F	add one char of */=>@| to enteries
ls -i	list file’s inode index number
ls -l	list with long format — show permissions
ls -la	list long format including hidden files
ls -lh	list long format with readable file size
ls -ls	list with long format with file size
ls -r	list in reverse order
ls -R	list recursively directory tree
ls -s	list file size
ls -S	sort by file size
ls -t	sort by time & date
ls -X	sort by extension name

ls command examples

You can press the tab button to auto complete the file or folder names.

List directory Documents/Books with relative path:

List directory /home/user/Documents/Books with absolute path.

List root directory:

List parent directory:

List user’s home directory (e.g: /home/user):

List with long format:

Show hidden files:

List with long format and show hidden files:

Sort by date/time:

Sort by file size:

List all subdirectories:

Recursive directory tree list:

List only text files with wildcard:

ls redirection to output file:

List directories only:

List files and directories with full path:

ls code generator

Select ls options and press the Generate Code button:

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An Easy Way to Hide Files and Directories in Linux

Do you occasionally share your Linux desktop machine with family members, friends or perhaps with colleagues at your workplace, then you have a reason to hide certain private files as well as folders or directories. The question is how can you do this?

In this tutorial, we will explain an easy and effective way to hide files and directories and view hidden files/directories in Linux from the terminal and GUI.

As we’ll see below, hiding files and directories in Linux is so simple.

How to Hide Files and Directories in Linux

To hide a file or directory from the terminal, simply append a dot . at the start of its name as follows using the mv command.

Hide File in Linux Terminal

Using GUI method, the same idea applies here, just rename the file by adding a . at the start of its name as shown below.

Hide File in Linux Using File Manager

Once you have renamed it, the file will still be seen, move out of the directory and open it again, it will be hidden thereafter.

How to View Hide Files and Directories in Linux

To view hidden files, run the ls command with the -a flag which enables viewing of all files in a directory or -al flag for long listing.

View Hidden Files in Linux Terminal

From a GUI file manager, go to View and check the option Show Hidden Files to view hidden files or directories.

View Hidden File Using File Manager

How to Compress Files and Directories with a Password

In order to add a little security to your hidden files, you can compress them with a password and then hide them from a GUI file manager as follows.

Select the file or directory and right click on it, then choose Compress from the menu list, after seeing the compression preferences interface, click on “Other options” to get the password option as shown in the screenshot below.

Once you have set the password, click on Create.

Compress Files with Password in Linux

From now on, each time anyone wants to open the file, they’ll be asked to provide the password created above.

Enter Password to View Files

Now you can hide the file by renaming it with a . as we explained before.

That’s it for now! In this tutorial, we described how to easily and effectively hide files and directories and view hidden files/directories in Linux from the terminal and GUI file manager. Make use of the feedback form below to share any thoughts with us.

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How to List Only Directories in Linux

The ls command in Linux is used to list the files and directories in a directory. But if you wish to list directories only using ls command, what are the options?

We learn how to use command chaining (using pipes) to see what directories are present in a given directory.

In this tutorial, I will show you a number of ways to list directories only in Linux.

Listing directories using Wildcards

The simplest method is using wildcards. All the directories end in forward slash.

For the long listing, just add -l option.

Using -F option and grep

The -F options appends a trailing forward slash. So we can grep the directories only by ‘grep’ ing lines ending with a forward slash (/).

or for just the directory names, without -l option,

Using -l option and grep

In the long listing of ls i.e. ls -l , we can ‘grep’ the lines starting with d .

We can extract just the file names by printing only the last columns.

Using echo command

We can use echo command to list the entries trailing with forward slash (/).

Using printf

Similarly, printf can be used to highlight strings ending with forward slash (/).

Using find command

We can always find files based on their file types using find command:

The maxdepth option in the above command specifies that the search is to be performed in specified directory only. Otherwise, find command will find the directories recursively, by traversing each directory and their subdirectories. Also, in this command, the hidden directories are also shown. In all above methods that use ls command, the same can be achieved through -a option. For example,

Thanks for reading this article. Let me know your thoughts.

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How to Find Out Top Directories and Files (Disk Space) in Linux

As a Linux administrator, you must periodically check which files and folders are consuming more disk space. It is very necessary to find unnecessary junk and free up them from your hard disk.

This brief tutorial describes how to find the largest files and folders in the Linux file system using du (disk usage) and find command. If you want to learn more about these two commands, then head over to the following articles.

How to Find Biggest Files and Directories in Linux

Run the following command to find out top biggest directories under /home partition.

Find Largest Directories in Linux

The above command displays the biggest 5 directories of my /home partition.

Find Largest Directories in Linux

If you want to display the biggest directories in the current working directory, run:

Find Biggest Directories Only

Let us break down the command and see what says each parameter.

1. du command: Estimate file space usage.
2. a : Displays all files and folders.
3. sort command : Sort lines of text files.
4. -n : Compare according to string numerical value.
5. -r : Reverse the result of comparisons.
6. head : Output the first part of files.
7. -n : Print the first ‘n’ lines. (In our case, We displayed the first 5 lines).

Some of you would like to display the above result in human-readable format. i.e you might want to display the largest files in KB, MB, or GB.

Find Top Directories Sizes in Linux

The above command will show the top directories, which are eating up more disk space. If you feel that some directories are not important, you can simply delete a few sub-directories or delete the entire folder to free up some space.

To display the largest folders/files including the sub-directories, run:

Find Largest Folder and Subdirectories

Find out the meaning of each option using in above command:

1. du command: Estimate file space usage.
2. -h : Print sizes in human-readable format (e.g., 10MB).
3. -S : Do not include the size of subdirectories.
4. -s : Display only a total for each argument.
5. sort command : sort lines of text files.
6. -r : Reverse the result of comparisons.
7. -h : Compare human readable numbers (e.g., 2K, 1G).
8. head : Output the first part of files.

Find Out Top File Sizes Only

If you want to display the biggest file sizes only, then run the following command:

Find Top File Sizes in Linux

To find the largest files in a particular location, just include the path beside the find command:

Find Top File Size in Specific Location

The above command will display the largest file from /home/tecmint/Downloads directory.

That’s all for now. Finding the biggest files and folders is no big deal. Even a novice administrator can easily find them. If you find this tutorial useful, please share it on your social networks and support TecMint.

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Viewing directories and files in Linux

1. Display the current directory: pwd

In Linux, use the pwd command to view the full path of the «current working directory». Simply put, whenever you operate in the terminal, you will have a current working directory.

When you are not sure about the current location, pwd will be used to determine the exact location of the current directory in the file system.

Command format:

parameter:

• Under normal circumstances without any parameters
• If the directory is linked:
• Format: pwd -P displays the actual path instead of using the link path.

Example:

View the directory location of the linked file and the real file

2. Change directory: cd

Switch the current directory to the target directory. Replace the double click of the mouse

Command format:

Among them: the target directory can be

• . Represents the current directory
• … Represents the upper directory
• -Represents the previous working directory

Represents the home directory where «current user identity» is located

The function of the relative path is to simplify the compilation of the directory location. For example, if you want to view the file1 in the d1 directory under the user1 home directory, if the login user is user1, the absolute path is executed like this.

If using relative path

From the above description, it is not difficult to see that sometimes it is quite easy to use relative paths!

1) Display the files under etc

2) Documents displayed/under

3. List the contents of the directory: ls

The ls command is the most commonly used command under Linux. The ls command is short for list. By default, ls is used to print out the list of the current directory. If ls specifies another directory, then a list of files and directories in the specified directory will be displayed. The ls command can not only view the files contained in the linux folder, but also view file permissions (including directories, folders, file permissions), view directory information, and so on. The ls command is used a lot in daily linux operations!

Command format:

List all the subdirectories and files in the target directory. If you do not write the directory name, the default is the current path.

Common parameters:

• -a: -all lists all files in the directory, including hidden files beginning with.
• -l: In addition to the file name, the file permissions, owner, file size and other information are listed in detail.
• -r,: -reverse arranged in reverse order
• -t: sort by file modification time

Examples:

1. View list information and detailed information

1. View list of non-detailed information including hidden directories

1. View all details of the list including hidden directories

1. Display the results of the ls -l command in reverse

1. Sort in descending order of update time

1. Sort by update time in ascending order【r:Reverse】

1. Check the current home directory and other designated directories

1. According to the relative path to locate, view the list under the specific path

4. View the text file: cat

cat is used to view the contents of a file, usually a text file, and the file is not large.

Command format:

parameter:

-b, —number-nonblank number non-blank output lines

-n, —number number all output lines, starting from 1 to number all output lines

5. Read the beginning of the file: head

head is used to display the beginning of the file to standard output.

Command format:

Command function:

head is used to display the beginning of the file to the standard output. The default head command prints the first 10 lines of the corresponding file.

parameter:

-c display the number of bytes

-n the number of lines displayed

Example:

Upload tomcat’s server.xml file (ftp)

1. 10 lines of content are displayed by default

1. Display based on the number of custom rows

1. Show by number of bytes

4) Solve the problem of displaying line numbers in the head command

5) A Chinese character occupies 3 bytes

6. Read the end of the file and circularly view the new log: tail

The tail command writes a file to standard output from the specified point. Use the -f option of the tail command to easily view the changing log file,

tail -f filename will display the last content in filename on the screen, and not only refresh it, so that you can see the latest file content.

Command format:

Command function:

Used to display the contents of the end of the specified file. When the file is not specified, it is processed as input information. Commonly used to view log files.

parameter:

• -f loop read
• -c the number of bytes displayed
• -n display the number of lines

Example:

1. Read 10 lines of data at the end of the file by default

1. Display data from the second line of the file

1. Loop display data

When you enter tail -f, the current client will enter the waiting state, and you will no longer be able to enter commands (you must press ctrl+c to end the waiting state). At this time, the program will always monitor the changes in this file, and if there is a change, it will be immediately Will be displayed to the console

Waiting for input

Other clients start typing

When we use Linux as a server in the future, we can use this feature to monitor the server status (such as monitoring tomcat logs)

4) Supplementary display of dynamic monitoring issues

7. A better text reading tool: less

The less tool is also a tool for paging display of files or other output. It should be said that it is a tool for linux orthodox to view the contents of files, and it is extremely powerful. You can use the button functions such as [pageup] [pagedown] to go back and forth to view files, which is easier to view the contents of a file! In addition, you can have more search functions in less, not only can search downwards, but also search upwards.

Command format:

Command function:

Use less to browse files at will, and less will not load the entire file before viewing it.

parameter:

• -m shows the percentage of the file
• -N displays the line number of each line

Operation commands in the file:

• /String: the function to search down «string»
• ?String: Search «string» upwards
• n: repeat the previous search (related to / or ?)
• N: Repeat the previous search in reverse (related to / or ?)
• j: scroll down one line
• k: scroll up one line
• G: Jump to the end of the file
• g: jump to the head of the file
• q: exit

Example:

1) Browse files and display the percentage of files

2) Browse the file and display the line number of each line

1. After opening the file, query the «server» string downwards, press the n key to continue searching, and press the N key to search backwards

1. After opening the file, query upwards for the «server» string

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