Unix: ls, how to sort first directories then files etc

Question

I would like to use ls command to first show direcotries and then files. I tried

ls -la | sort -k 1

But I got a wrong order.

Answer 1

The following command will list directories first, ordinary files second, and links third.

ls -la | grep "^d" && ls -la | grep "^-" && ls -la | grep "^l"

Also, it would make a great deal of sense to create an alias for this command to save keystrokes.

Edit:

If you want directories first, and then everything that is not a directory second, use this:

ls -la | grep "^d" && ls -la | grep -v "^d"

Answer 2

I do so love *nix and love seeing the inventiveness that goes into some of these replies...

Mine's not nearly as fancy on GNU Linux :

alias ls='ls --color -h --group-directories-first'

Answer 3

Here's a function to do this (bash or zsh): And... I'm not suggesting this is the best way, but it's the one I came up with and am using right now:

function lss
{
    # Shows directory listing with directories at the top.

    command ls  --color=always $@ | egrep '^d|total'
    command ls  --color=always $@ | egrep -v '^d|total';
}

Answer 4

You've got several choices, depending if you want to keep alphabetical order.

You could simply try :

ls -al | sort -k1 -r

or this, to keep alphabetic order for files with the same permissions :

ls -al | sort -k1,1 -k9,9 -r

or, as eleven81 said (but this version lists everything) :

ls -la | grep "^d" && ls -la | grep "^-" && ls -al | grep -v "^[d|-]"

Answer 5

To delerious010's answer, I would add that if you want old-style ordering:

LANG=C ls -la --group-directories-first

(or use LC_ALL or LANGUAGE or LC_COLLATE set to "C").

This will give something similar to:

.
..
DIR
Dir
dir
.hidden
123
UC_FILE
Uc_file
lc_file

Although, if I recall correctly, the hidden dot files originally appeared before the directories.

Answer 6

ls -laX will show you directories first in alphabetical order, but will screw the file list.

Answer 7

Here is a good web site, Unix LS Command, 15 best practices

It's detailed and a lot of information is listed.

There is also the LS Wikipedia page that can give some good information.

Hope this will help!

David.