you mean output not read, right? Usually ls -l prints the long format that you don't want. Sometimes the default is the long format -- that depends on your shell or your ls command. But actually I usually use the following to print a nice concise list of names: ls -CFb This has the following effect: -C (note capital C) outputs the file names in columns with names sorted down each column rather than across the rows. -F (note capital F) I believe prints a suffix character after each name indicating what kind of file it is. No suffix means a regular file; @ means a symbolic link; * means it is executable; / means it is a directory -- and there may be more. -b (note lowercase b) prints all non printable characters in the name -- in case there are any. I can't remember exactly how this worked. Anyway, these are the switches I always used and found to be very useful in that they compact a lot of info into a relatively small space. HTH! --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "EPYD Productions" <epyd2@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 4:38 AM Subject: info on ls hi if this question is off topic or if i may get flamed for asking it, maybe some one could give me the newbie blinux list info? i am wondering what switch to use or the equivilent to make ls just read the file names, and not the other info when doing the ls command? for example when i ftp, its just too much info to liten to when trying to see what files are in a dir. thanks. Blind Tech website: http://www.users.qwest.net/~drjann/epyd/ contact info can be found on website email list: EPYD Radio-subscribe at yahoogroups.com EPYD the only place to be! _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
