So, as expected then, yes?
Yes, as expected. But not what I understood the OP was trying to do. Unless I'm mistaken, that syntax (ls [^.]*/) was used to assign the directory names in the current working directory to a variable. However that is not the output of that command. The output is the directories and their contents. Hence where much of my confusion came.
Does it make sense now?
Yes, it finally clicked this morning around 5:00 am when I was driving. I now understand the reason for the */ part of the syntax. Ultimately the OP's wishes would be best/most accurately met using the find command from what I can gather. dirs=`find -maxdepth 1 -type d \! -regex "^\.$"` (the \! -regex "^.$" to eliminate the . directory) files=`find -maxdepth 1 -type f` Or to remove the path name (./) to have only the file names (or directory names), I would use: files=`find -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf "%f "` resulting in a space delimited output. Jacques B.
