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alhelal
Asked: 2018-10-08 05:06:23 +0800 CST

How to sort the output of `ls`?

  • 772

Is it possible to view this output sorted with titlepage_1.pdf before titlepage_19.pdf?

$ ls
allTitlepage.pdf         titlepage_12.pdf  titlepage_19.tex  titlepage_26.pdf  titlepage_32.tex  titlepage_4.tex
allTitlepage.tex         titlepage_12.tex  titlepage_1.pdf   titlepage_26.tex  titlepage_33.pdf  titlepage_5.pdf
assignment.pdf           titlepage_13.pdf  titlepage_1.tex   titlepage_27.pdf  titlepage_34.pdf  titlepage_5.tex
assignment.tex           titlepage_13.tex  titlepage_20.pdf  titlepage_27.tex  titlepage_34.tex  titlepage_6.pdf
graphicsAssignment2.pdf  titlepage_14.pdf  titlepage_20.tex  titlepage_28.pdf  titlepage_35.pdf  titlepage_6.tex
graphicsAssignment2.tex  titlepage_14.tex  titlepage_21.pdf  titlepage_28.tex  titlepage_35.tex  titlepage_7.pdf
README.md                titlepage_15.pdf  titlepage_21.tex  titlepage_29.pdf  titlepage_36.pdf  titlepage_7.tex
thesisTitlepage.pdf      titlepage_15.tex  titlepage_22.pdf  titlepage_29.tex  titlepage_36.tex  titlepage_8.pdf
thesisTitlepage.tex      titlepage_16.pdf  titlepage_22.tex  titlepage_2.pdf   titlepage_37.pdf  titlepage_8.tex
titlepage_0.pdf          titlepage_16.tex  titlepage_23.pdf  titlepage_2.tex   titlepage_37.tex  titlepage_9.pdf
titlepage_0.tex          titlepage_17.pdf  titlepage_23.tex  titlepage_30.pdf  titlepage_38.pdf  titlepage_9.tex
titlepage_10.pdf         titlepage_17.tex  titlepage_24.pdf  titlepage_30.tex  titlepage_38.tex  titlepage_one.pdf
titlepage_10.tex         titlepage_18.pdf  titlepage_24.tex  titlepage_31.pdf  titlepage_3.pdf   titlepage_one.tex
titlepage_11.pdf         titlepage_18.tex  titlepage_25.pdf  titlepage_31.tex  titlepage_3.tex   titlepage_two.tex
titlepage_11.tex         titlepage_19.pdf  titlepage_25.tex  titlepage_32.pdf  titlepage_4.pdf
command-line ls

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use the switch -v [natural sort of (version) numbers within text]

    ls -v

    If you want single column use

    ls -1v
    • 32

  2. The output is sorted. According to the ls manpage:

    Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.

    But if you want to go further, you have at least two options:

    Option 1 - ls sort switches

    man ls tells you about a number of switches you can use to sort, specifically, the ls man page says:

    none (-U), size (-S), time (-t), version (-v), extension (-X)

    In your case, you want "version" sort (-v). Be careful, though, since this will also sort anything that has a blahblah-X.Y.Z-A arrangement which may not be entirely what you want. See also GNU's explanation of version sort.

    Option 2 - Pipes to sorting commands

    You could use a pipe | to send the output to another command, for example the command sort which you could use to sort in a number of other ways, as in ls -1 | sort -n which is useful if you have numbered files. The -1 switch ensures that the output is one-line-per-file.

    Equally, you can manipulate the output to aid with sorting by using things like sed or awk.

    There are plenty of ways to answer this sort of* question. You may find a linux shell tutorial helpful.

    *(See what I did there? :-p)

    • 14

  3. As already pointed out in a comment, the output is already sorted, but by characters, not numbers. You may want to pipe the output of ls through sort which has a switch to sort by numbers within strings:

    ls | sort --version-sort

    From the manpage:

    -V, --version-sort
         natural sort of (version) numbers within text

    Downside: When we issue ls then it outputs the files in a table with as many columns as fit on the current screen (just like you showed in your post). But when ls notices that its output is redirected to a file or to a pipe (as in ls | sort) then ls prints the files in just one column because it then assumes the output is to be processed line-by-line (aka file-by-file) by some other program (like sort). So the output of ls | sort -V will be in one column instead of in a table with multiple columns. See @vijay's simple but perfect answer for how to avoid that.

    • 6

  4. ls -l : lists files of the directory vertically but not in a particular order.

    ls -l | sort -k 3 : -k 3 would sort the output of the previous command by the 3rd column.

    • 0

  5. Please try this.

    ls -ltrh --sort=size

    Sample output

    $ ls -ltrh --sort=size
total 13M
drwxr-xr-x 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089    0 Nov 11 14:26  ZZZZZ3309669667/
drwxr-xr-x 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089    0 Nov 11 14:26  ZZZZZ1036987434/
-rw-r--r-- 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089  504 Jun 10 17:11  desktop.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089 1021 Oct 30 13:02  jZHcYAg3964781410.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089 1021 Oct 30 13:02  jZHcYAg3531170004.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089 2.0K Oct 18 13:06  ZZZZZ596653076.doc
-rw-r--r-- 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089 2.0K Oct 18 13:06  ZZZZZ2113390587.doc
-rw-r--r-- 1 tayyab.sarfraz 1049089 4.0K Oct 26 12:35 '!!!!!3048223661.pem'
    • 0