Editing Ls (section)

== Example ==
The following example shows the long form output:
<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
$ ls -l
drwxr--r--   1 fjones editors     4096 Mar  2 12:52  drafts
-rw-r--r--   3 fjones editors    30405 Mar  2 12:52  edition-32
-r-xr-xr-x   1 fjones bookkeepers 8460 Jan 16  2022  edit.sh
</syntaxhighlight>

Each output line includes a file type letter ('-' for file, 'd' for directory), 9 letters representing [[File system permissions#Notation of traditional Unix permissions|permissions]], the number of [[hard link]]s, owning user, owning group, [[file size|size]], modification date, [[filename|name]]. In the working directory, the owner <code>fjones</code> has a directory named <code>drafts</code>, a regular file named <code>edition-32</code>, and an executable named <code>edit.sh</code> which is "old", i.e. modified more than 6 months ago as indicated by the display of the year.

<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
┌─────────── file (not a directory)
|┌─────────── read-write (no execution) permissions for the owner
|│  ┌───────── read-only permissions for the group
|│  │  ┌─────── read-only permissions for others
|│  │  │     ┌── 3 hard links
|│  │  │     │   ┌── owning user
|│  │  │     │   │     ┌── owning group
|│  │  │     │   │     │          ┌── file size in bytes
|│  │  │     │   │     │          │    ┌── last modified on
|│  │  │     │   │     │          │    │                ┌── filename
-rw-r--r--   3 fjones editors    30405 Mar  2 12:52  edition-32
</syntaxhighlight>

Some implementations support color output to indicate metadata. [[GNU]] <code>ls</code> provides the <code>--color</code> option<ref>{{Cite web |title=General output formatting (GNU Coreutils 9.1) |url=https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/General-output-formatting.html |access-date=2023-01-07 |website=www.gnu.org}}</ref> which enables using a database to control colors maintained using dircolors. [[FreeBSD]] <code>ls</code> provides the <code>-G</code> option which enables using the [[termcap]] database<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ls |title=FreeBSD Man Pages &mdash; ls |access-date=June 23, 2013 }}</ref> The following example shows possible color output:

 -rw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion   26650 Dec 20 11:16 <span style="color:dodgerblue                   ">audio.ogg</span>
 brw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion      64 Jan 27 05:52 <span style="color:chocolate                 ">bd-block-device</span>
 crw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion     255 Jan 26 13:57 <span style="color:chocolate                 ">cd-character-device</span>
 -rw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion     290 Jan 26 14:08 <span style="color:magenta                ">image.png</span>
 drwxrwxr-x    2 tsmitt nregion      48 Jan 26 11:28 <span style="color:blue                   ">di-directory</span>
 -rwxrwxr-x    1 tsmitt nregion      29 Jan 26 14:03 <span style="color:green                   ">ex-executable</span>
 -rw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion       0 Dec 20 09:39 <span style="color:dimgray                ">fi-regular-file</span>
 lrwxrwxrwx    1 tsmitt nregion       3 Jan 26 11:44 <span style="color:dodgerblue                   ">ln-soft-link</span> -> <span style="color:blue">dir</span>
 lrwxrwxrwx    1 tsmitt nregion      15 Dec 20 10:57 <span style="color:lightcoral             ">or-orphan-link</span> -> <span style="color:white;background:lightcoral">mi-missing-link</span>
 drwxr-xrwx    2 tsmitt nregion    4096 Dec 20 10:58 <span style="color:blue;background:lime   ">ow-other-writeable-dir</span>
 prw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion       0 Jan 26 11:50 <span style="color:darkgoldenrod                ">pi-pipe</span>
 -rwxr-sr-x    1 tsmitt nregion       0 Dec 20 11:05 <span style="color:black;background:yellow">sg-setgid</span>
 srw-rw-rw-    1 tsmitt nregion       0 Jan 26 12:00 <span style="color:magenta                ">so-socket</span>
 drwxr-xr-t    2 tsmitt nregion    4096 Dec 20 10:58 <span style="color:white;background:blue  ">st-sticky-dir</span>
 -rwsr-xr-x    1 tsmitt nregion       0 Dec 20 11:09 <span style="color:white;background:red   ">su-setuid</span>
 -rw-r--r--    1 tsmitt nregion   10240 Dec 20 11:12 <span style="color:red                    ">compressed.gz</span>
 drwxrwxrwt    2 tsmitt nregion    4096 Dec 20 11:10 <span style="color:black;background:lime  ">tw-sticky-other-writeable-dir</span>