How to Display File Information (System Administration Guide, Volume 2)

System Administration Guide, Volume 2

How to Display File Information

Display information about all the files in a directory by using the ls command.

$ ls -la

`-l`	Displays the long format.
`-a`	Displays all files, including hidden files that begin with a dot (.).

Each line in the display has the following information about a file:

Type of file

A file can be one of seven types. The table below lists the possible file types.

Table 17-4 File Types


Symbol	Type
`-`	Text or program
`d`	Directory
`b`	Block special file
`c`	Character special file
`p`	Named pipe (FIFO)
`l`	Symbolic link
`s`	Socket

Permissions; see Table 17-1 and Table 17-2 for descriptions
Number of hard links
Owner of the file
Group of the file
Size of the file, in bytes
Date the file was created or last date it was changed
Name of the file

Example--Displaying File Information

The following example displays the partial list of the files in the /sbin directory.

$ cd /sbin
$ ls -la
total 13456
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     sys          512 Sep  1 14:11 .
drwxr-xr-x  29 root     root        1024 Sep  1 15:40 ..
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       218188 Aug 18 15:17 autopush
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root          21 Sep  1 14:11 bpgetfile -> ...
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       505556 Aug 20 13:24 dhcpagent
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       456064 Aug 20 13:25 dhcpinfo
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       272360 Aug 18 15:19 fdisk
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       824728 Aug 20 13:29 hostconfig
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       603528 Aug 20 13:21 ifconfig
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     sys       556008 Aug 20 13:21 init
-r-xr-xr-x   2 root     root      274020 Aug 18 15:28 jsh
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     bin       238736 Aug 21 19:46 mount
-r-xr-xr-x   1 root     sys         7696 Aug 18 15:20 mountall
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