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I'm trying to find a command that would list all files (including hidden files), but must exclude the current directory and parent directory. Please help.

$ ls -a \.\..
jww
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nondoo
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3 Answers3

69

Regarding the ls(1) documentation (man ls):

-A, --almost-all do not list implied . and ..

you need (without any additional argument such as .*):

ls -A

or better yet:

/bin/ls -A
mgutt
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Basile Starynkevitch
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5
$ ls -lA

works best for my needs.

For convenience I recommend to define an alias within .bashrc-file as follows:

alias ll='ls -lA'
Alan
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4

I have a situation where I want to remove a series of dot-directories. In my servers we mark directories for removal adding a dot and certain other text patterns (timestamp) for automated removal. Sometimes I need to do that manually.

As I commented to Basile Starynkevitch's reply, when you use a globbing pattern like the one below the -A switch loses its function and works just as -a: 

 runlevel0@ubuntu:~/scripts$ ls -1dA .*
.
..
.comparepp.sh.swp

It would most certainly give an error if I try to remove files as a user, but I just don't want to think what could happen as root (!)

My approach in this case is: 

for dir in $(ls -1ad .* | tail -n +3) ; do rm -rfv $dir  ; done

I tail out the 2 first line containing the dots as you can see. To tailor the answer to the question asked this would do the job: 

ls -d1A .* | tail -n +3
Community
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runlevel0
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  • BTW, as root nothing happens except an error message "cannot remove" but still, better to be over-cautious with production servers. – runlevel0 Jun 01 '16 at 10:51