bug-coreutils
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: ls -l `file type' column not documented


From: Eric Blake
Subject: Re: ls -l `file type' column not documented
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 20:15:03 -0600
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5 (Windows/20051201)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

According to Lincoln Martin on 4/12/2006 7:58 AM:
> Hello all,
> 
> The `file type' field in the output from ls -l is not documented in the
> info
> pages nor in the man page. What does each letter mean? Nowhere is
> this information to be found, and this should be fixed.

Indeed, the info documentation bundled with coreutils 5.94 does not detail
this.  Hopefully this will be fixed for the eventual 6.0 release.

In the meantime, looking at the source code (lib/filemode.c), the letters
used by 'ls -l' are as follows.  And remember that not all file types
exist on all systems:

/* Return a character indicating the type of file described by
   file mode BITS:
   'd' for directories
   'D' for doors
   'b' for block special files
   'c' for character special files
   'n' for network special files
   'm' for multiplexor files
   'M' for an off-line (regular) file
   'l' for symbolic links
   's' for sockets
   'p' for fifos
   'C' for contigous data files
   '-' for regular files
   '?' for any other file type.  */

- --
Life is short - so eat dessert first!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.1 (Cygwin)
Comment: Public key at home.comcast.net/~ericblake/eblake.gpg
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFEPbQn84KuGfSFAYARAmfMAJ9Lwu7sU/5Wl9uNn0txeejLdGMsoQCgogqU
Z6Xds3CJ+bZCvyX2mOl6vM8=
=t5Ow
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----




reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]