Linux - command to list files (except ls)

Question

Imagine you were working on a system and someone accidentally deleted the ls command (/bin/ls). How could you get a list of the files in the current directory? Try it.

I tried many methods and also searched on the Internet but nothing. I want to ask beside ls command what command can we use to list out all the files.

Answer 1

echo *

... will show files in the current folder through file globbing on Bourne compatible shells.

This lists all files down one level:

echo */*

In Bash, if globstar is set (set with shopt -s globstar, unset with shopt -u globstar), this will list all files recursively:

echo **

Answer 2

find -maxdepth 1 
find -maxdepth 1 -ls

less TAB TAB

finds -ls switch is independent of /bin/ls and has its own format, and displays detail information:

127432    0 drwxr-xr-x   2 stefan   stefan         48 Apr  8 22:51 ./temp/falsch/.hiddenfalsch
127447    0 lrwxrwxrwx   1 stefan   stefan          9 Apr  8 22:51 ./temp/falsch/linkfalsch -> subfalsch
127427    0 drwxr-xr-x   2 stefan   stefan         48 Apr  8 22:51 ./temp/.hiddenmusik

another, details showing possibility, is stat

stat *
  File: `halx0o'
  Size: 0           Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: 807h/2055d  Inode: 102701      Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/  stefan)   Gid: ( 1000/  stefan)
Access: 2011-04-08 22:38:18.000000000 +0200
Modify: 2009-07-23 03:16:15.000000000 +0200
Change: 2011-04-09 23:29:13.000000000 +0200
  File: `ho ho ho'
  Size: 0           Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: 807h/2055d  Inode: 115835      Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)  Uid: ( 1000/  stefan)   Gid: ( 1000/  stefan)
Access: 2011-04-08 22:38:18.000000000 +0200
Modify: 2010-07-24 14:12:48.000000000 +0200
Change: 2011-04-09 23:29:13.000000000 +0200

Answer 3

To make it look like ls, I'd use Bash's for loop:

for i in *; do echo $i; done

If that doesn't work, I'd try Python ;) :

python -c "import glob; print '\n'.join(glob.glob('/home/*'))"

Answer 4

Good ol' vim ;) (with sorting, browsing, etc)

vim .

Answer 5

find .

Though you probably would want to enter whatever limiting parameters you need.

Answer 6

Similar to the echo version, but this prints out one entry per line for greater readability:

printf %s\\n ./*

or

printf '%s\n' ./*

Recursively (for bash 4+; other shells either need a different option to set it or have globstar enabled by default):

shopt -s globstar
printf %s\\n ./**/*

Answer 7

lsattr ./*

getfacl ./* will display permissions too

grep -l '.*' ./*

awk 'FNR==1 {print FILENAME}' ./* works with GNU awk

debugfs /dev/sdX replace sdX with whatever partition you want to do an ls on, then you can ls inside debugfs

debugfs:  cd /
debugfs:  ls -l
      2   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  6-Apr-2011 01:01 .
      2   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  6-Apr-2011 01:01 ..
     11   40700 (2)      0      0   16384  5-Jul-2010 09:59 lost+found
 2392065   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  5-Jul-2010 09:59 boot
 2228225   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  5-Jul-2010 09:59 sys
 1376257   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  5-Jul-2010 09:59 proc
 4915201   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  5-Jul-2010 09:59 dev
 3473409   40755 (2)      0      0   12288 10-Apr-2011 22:05 etc
  98305  100644 (1)      0      0       0  6-Jul-2010 12:05 .autofsck
 3342337   40755 (2)      0      0    4096  5-Apr-2011 15:05 var
 3932161   41777 (2)      0      0    4096 10-Apr-2011 22:11 tmp
  ..........
debugfs:  

lynx ./

mc assuming you have midnight commander installed

Answer 8

How about dir command? :)

/bin/dir

Answer 9

Well if I couldn't use ls within shell mode of emacs, I might switch to eshell mode or just a dired.

Answer 10

If I have bash shell started (or any other shell with completion), I would probably just type '*' then tab.

Or as I usually have X started, I may also just do 'nautilus .', but OK that's for humans.

I may also try /usr/bin/lsattr

But in the real world what I would really do if such thing occured to me would certainly be:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall coreutils

Answer 11

In bash, or a shell with similar tab-completion, you don't need to use a real command at all: wibble followed by two tabs will get you a list of files in the current directory, and wibble /bin/ followed by two tabs will show you what's left of /bin. I once found myself in this situation (actually, I'd killed /bin entirely along with some other things), and started off using the echo * approach @STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED suggested, but eventually found tab completion more convenient.

Answer 12

Another way with tree, not mentioned anywhere here, it goes recursively and unlike find or ls you don't have any errors (like: Permission denied, Not a directory) you also get the absolute path in case you want to feed the files to xargs or other command

tree -fai /pathYouWantToList >listOfFiles.list

the options meaning:

-a     All  files  are  printed.  By default tree does not print hidden files (those beginning with a dot
       `.').  In no event does tree print the file system constructs `.'  (current  directory)  and  `..'
       (previous directory).

-i     Makes tree not print the indentation lines, useful when used in conjunction with the -f option.

-f     Prints the full path prefix for each file.