List only file size and name and symlinks

Question

When I use ls -lah I get lots of information for each file.

How can I get only the name and filesize?

Additionally I would like to keep the listing of symlinks with the arrow like

lrwxrwxrwx  1 rubo77    rubo77       4 Nov 21 01:53 test2 -> test

slm · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-21T01:31:54.167

9

Selecting columns to print with awk

One method would be to parse the output of ls.

Example

$ ls -lah | awk '{print $9, $5}' | tail -5
.yEd 4.0K
.youtube-dl 4.0K
.zenmap 4.0K
.zshrc 32
zzzz 3.3K

By the way, you can clean up the output using column.

$ ls -lah | awk '{print $9, $5}' | column -t | tail -5
z                                                   4
.youtube-dl                                         4.0K
.zenmap                                             4.0K
.zshrc                                              32
zzzz                                                3.3K

Selecting columns to remove with awk

If you'd rather remove the other columns, while keeping others you can use this awk method to blank out the undesirable columns.

Example

$ ls -lah | awk '{$1=$2=$3=$4=$6=$7=$8=""}1' | tail -5
    4.0K    .youtube-dl
    4    z -> zzzz
    4.0K    .zenmap
    32    .zshrc
    3.3K    zzzz

Eventual solution

The OP came up with this chain of commands, using a mix of the examples from above.

$ ls -lah | awk '{print $5, $9$10$11}' | column -t | column 
...
4.0K  .gphoto              773   .rdebug_hist     4.0K  .youtube-dl
1.5K  .grip                4.0K  .rdesktop        4     z->zzzz

edited Nov 21 '13 at 01:31

answered Nov 21 '13 at 00:55

slm

369,824

cool, if I use ls -lah | awk '{print $5, $9$10$11}'|column I get what I wanted – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 00:59
@rubo77 - see updates, for another method to blank out the unwanted columns too. – slm Nov 21 '13 at 01:00
you should trim each line and sent that to column – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 01:01
Your awk strategy doesn't preserve alignment. The ones using column inclusion truncate file names containing spaces; the one with column removal doesn't have this defect. Also piping into another command suppresses the colors that many people use. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Nov 21 '13 at 01:08
If you expect files with leading or trailing spaces you could use ls -lahQ to quote filenames instead – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 01:11
@slm: please add a symlink in your example – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 01:12
@rubo77 - yes I saw you tried that, I've added one. – slm Nov 21 '13 at 01:13
if you add | column -t | column you get the right formatting back. This works best for me: ls -lah | awk '{print $5, $9$10$11}' | column -t | column – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 01:17

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 21 '13 at 00:41

5

From the man page:

  -s, --size
          print the allocated size of each file, in blocks

So for human-readable sizes:

ls -sh

answered Nov 21 '13 at 00:41

ssch

241

I was looking for this to find a solution to How can I list all files and symlinks in a compact view? so this looks promising, but it doesen't show the symlink targets as I was hoping, like ls -lah does. (I added this to the question) – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 00:52
if you want to see hidden files too, use ls -ash – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 08:22

Greg Hewgill · Answer 3 · 2013-11-21T01:27:26.277

4

One quick and dirty way is to combine the output of ls -lah with a couple of other commands:

ls -lah | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f5,9-

The tr -s command replaces multiple spaces with single spaces, and the cut -d' ' -f5,9- prints columns 5 and 9 (and beyond). The 9- is required to account for additional space-separated columns produced by symlinks.

edited Nov 21 '13 at 01:27

answered Nov 21 '13 at 00:41

Greg Hewgill

7,053
2
32
34

If I try to columnize that symlinks gets stretched at the arrow : ls -lah | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f5,9- | column -t | column – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 02:09
Well your question doesn't say anything about printing in columns. – Greg Hewgill Nov 21 '13 at 02:33
you are right, that was just related to my other question: How can I list all files and symlinks in a compact view? – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 08:17

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' · Answer 4 · 2013-11-21T01:27:44.887

1

The closest you can get with ls only is to suppress the user and group columns with ls -log. If you want to go further, you can parse the output. Beware that the second column (the link count) has variable width. The following shell snippet takes care to preserve column alignment, copes with arbitrary file names (except newlines if they're passed literally), and displays the output in color (remove that part if you aren't running GNU coreutils).

if [ -t 1 ]; then color=yes; else color=no; fi
ls -h -log --color="$color" | sed 's/^[^ ][^ ]* *[^ ][^ ]* \( *[^ ][^ ]*\) ............/\1/'

edited Nov 21 '13 at 01:27

answered Nov 21 '13 at 01:06

Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'

829,060

Is it possible to get this columnized like ls without options does? – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 01:22
@rubo77 Columns don't play so well with displaying symlink targets, which tend to get pretty wide. If you really want it, piping through column is the way to go. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Nov 21 '13 at 01:29
This answer is also fine, you could use: ls -halog --color=no | sed 's/^[^ ][^ ]* *[^ ][^ ]* $ *[^ ][^ ]*$ ............/\1/'|column – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 02:13
but slm's answer with awk is easyer to remember – rubo77 Nov 21 '13 at 02:14

List only file size and name and symlinks

4 Answers4

Selecting columns to print with awk

Example

Selecting columns to remove with awk

Example

Eventual solution