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I want to create a list of all the files in a directory, without listing any of the subdirectories that reside in that same directory, and print that list to a new file.

ls -d * > filelist

will create a list of all the files in the current directory, but it also lists the subdirectories in the current directory. I tried the find command using the -maxdepth 1 option - however, the output format is a problem as find also prints out the path along with the file names.

If anyone can please tell me perhaps another command or options to use that will produce an output list of just the files in a directory and not the names of the subdirectories or their contents, I would appreciate it.

muru
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janet
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8 Answers8

24

Find-based solution:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%f\n'

Bash-based solution:

for f in *; do [[ -d "$f" ]] || echo "$f"; done
##  or, if you want coloured output:
for f in *; do [[ -d "$f" ]] || ls -- "$f"; done

The bash-based solution will get you everything that isn't a directory; it will include things like named pipes (you probably want this). If you specifically want just files, either use the find command or one of these:

for f in *; do [[ -f "$f" ]] && echo "$f"; done
##  or, if you want coloured output:
for f in *; do [[ -f "$f" ]] && ls -- "$f"; done

If you're going to be using this regularly, you can of course put this into an alias somewhere in your ~/.bashrc:

alias lsfiles='for f in *; do [[ -f "$f" ]] && ls -- "$f"; done'

Since you noted in the comments that you're actually on OSX rather than Ubuntu, I would suggest that next time you direct questions to the Apple or more general Unix & Linux Stack Exchange sites.

Community
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evilsoup
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10

List filenames only: 

 1. ls -p | grep -v /                                   (without hidden files)
 2. ls -l | grep ^- | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 9       (without hidden files)

a) ls -pa | grep -v /                                  (with hidden files)
 b) ls -la | grep ^- | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f        (with hidden files)

List directories only: 

 1. ls -p | grep /                                      (without hidden)
 2. ls -l | grep ^d | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 9       (without hidden)

a) ls -pa | grep /                                     (with hidden)
 b) ls -l | grep ^d | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 9       (with hidden)

grep -v -e ^$ is to remove blank lines from the result.

More details:
ls -p flag is to put '/' at the end of the directory name, -R flag is for recursive search, -l for listing with info, -a for listing all(including hidden files) with info, grep -v flag is for result invertion and -e flag for regex matching.

Community
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Ananda
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9

To list regular files only:

ls -al | grep ^-

With symbolic links included:

ls -al | grep ^[-l]

Where the first character of the list describes the type of file, so - means that it's a regular file, for symbolic link is l.

Debian/Ubuntu

Print the names of the all matching files (including links):

run-parts --list --regex . .

With absolute paths:

run-parts --list --regex . $PWD

Print the names of all files in /etc that start with p and end with d:

run-parts --list --regex '^p.*d$' /etc
kenorb
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5

Yet another solution, a naively short one that worked for me:

ls -la | grep -E '^[^d]' > files
arsaKasra
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4

I would suggest to use find and just remove the directory name from the output if necessary:

find . -type f -maxdepth 1 | sed s,^./,,
kenorb
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Cougar
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3
ls -1 --file-type | grep -v '/' | sed s/@$// > filelist

Another possible option is

ls -F | grep -v '/' | sed /[@*]$// > filelist

The --file-type puts a / at the end of the folders (but also a @ at the end of symbolic links. The grep -v '/' removes the subdirectories (because they now end with a '/'). The sed s/@$// removes that @. The -1 prints one file per line so that the grep -v will work correctly.

Dr.Tower
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0

This will do what you want:

ls *.* > filelist
ramack
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0

The find solution is clever, but I wanted something closer to normal ls. And something that would work for directories other than the current one. Here's bash script that does that;

#!/bin/bash
dir=${1:-.}
find $dir -maxdepth 1 -type f |sed "s#$dir/##"|sort
Ran Talbott
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