How to list files by file owner in Unix command?

Question

I need to list all of the files my WD sorted alphabetically by the file owner name. Does ls have something for this?

Answer 1

The canonical solution:

ls -l | sort -k3,3

A lone 3 (as in '-k3') would tells sort to use column 3 to the end-of-line for sorting. This lets you do more advanced sorts like ls -l | sort -k3,3 -rnk5,5, which would sort your files first by user-name, then by size, largest first.

As always, for more information, run man sort.

Answer 2

I would use find -printf "%u %h/%f\n" | sort

Answer 3

I don't think there's anything built in, but you can pipe together a bit of a hack:

find . -ls | sort -k5

This works because on my installation the fifth column (-k5) of output from find is the username. Clearly this isn't portable.

Answer 4

ls -l | awk '{print $3"\t\t"$9}' | sort would also do it. The first column is the username, the second is the file/directory name:

[ 09:20 jon@host /home ]$ ls -l | awk '{print $3"\t\t"$9}' | sort

bettina         bettina
caldavd         caldavd
davical_app     postgres
davical_dba     davical_dba
istat           istat
jared           jared
jason           jason
jon             jon
jon             repo
root            lost+found
root            SCN_RepositoryB.tar.gz
tomcat          tomcat

This would show just the file/dir names (sorted by owner):

[ 09:24 jon@host /home ]$ ls -l | awk '{print $3"\t\t"$9}' | sort | awk '{print $2}'

bettina
caldavd
postgres
davical_dba
istat
jared
jason
jon
repo
lost+found
SCN_RepositoryB.tar.gz
tomcat

And this would show them sorted but on a single line:

[ 09:26 jon@host /home ]$ ls -l | awk '{print $3"\t\t"$9}' | sort | awk '{print $2}' | tr "\n" " "
bettina caldavd postgres davical_dba istat jared jason jon repo lost+found SCN_RepositoryB.tar.gz tomcat

Answer 5

ls -l | sort -k3

No need to specify 3 after -k3

kracekumar@python-lover:~$ ls -l /tmp | sort -k3  
total 36
drwx------ 2 gdm        gdm        4096 2011-10-14 08:36 orbit-gdm
drwx------ 2 gdm        gdm        4096 2011-10-14 08:36 pulse-    2L9K88eMlGn7
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 keyring-4O5hSc
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 pulse-SBBBfzrceWvC
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 ssh-UkESZoNj1595
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 virtual-kracekumar.5D8Mlv
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:43 orbit-kracekumar
drwx------ 2 root       root       4096 2011-10-14 08:36 pulse-PKdhtXMmr18n
drwxr-xr-x 3 www-data   www-data   4096 2011-10-14 08:36 www-data-temp-aspnet-0
kracekumar@python-lover:~$ ls -l /tmp | sort -k3,3
total 36
drwx------ 2 gdm        gdm        4096 2011-10-14 08:36 orbit-gdm
drwx------ 2 gdm        gdm        4096 2011-10-14 08:36 pulse-2L9K88eMlGn7
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 keyring-4O5hSc
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 pulse-SBBBfzrceWvC
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 ssh-UkESZoNj1595
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:36 virtual-kracekumar.5D8Mlv
drwx------ 2 kracekumar kracekumar 4096 2011-10-14 08:43 orbit-kracekumar
drwx------ 2 root       root       4096 2011-10-14 08:36 pulse-PKdhtXMmr18n
drwxr-xr-x 3 www-data   www-data   4096 2011-10-14 08:36 www-data-temp-aspnet-0
kracekumar@python-lover:~$