How to add new line between `ls -l` output

Question

This is standard ls -l output.

user@linux:~$ ls -l
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Nov   1 00:00 file01
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Nov   1 00:00 file02
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Nov   1 00:00 file03
user@linux:~$

Would it be possible to add new line like this?

-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Nov   1 00:00 file01

-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Nov   1 00:00 file02

-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 0 Nov   1 00:00 file03

But why? If it is to make it more readable, then consider changing to a different font, and different line spacing. — ctrl-alt-delor, Nov 30 '19 at 19:12
I agree with the above question. Please provide some rationale for your issue. Thank you. — Vlastimil Burián, Dec 01 '19 at 07:25

Stéphane Chazelas · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-02T16:46:48.363

ls -l | sed G

(that one is a common idiom and on the sed FAQ).

Or (likely faster, probably doesn't matter for the (likely short) output of ls -l):

ls -l | paste -d '\n' - /dev/null

Those insert a blank line after each line of the output of ls -l.

Now, if you want an empty line after each file described by ls -l, which would be different if there are files whose name contains newline characters, you would have to do something like:

for f in *; do ls -ld -- "$f" && echo; done

(which would also skip the total line).

Or you could use ls -ql which would make sure you get one line per file (the newline characters, like all control characters would be rendered as ? (at least in the POSIX locale)).

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 30 '19 at 17:10

6

Using awk:

ls -l | awk '{printf "%s\n\n", $0}'

answered Nov 30 '19 at 17:10

jesse_b

37,005

2

... or perhaps more idiomatically, ls -l | awk 1 ORS='\n\n' – steeldriver Nov 30 '19 at 17:27
1

Or ls -l | awk '{print $0 "\n"}' – U. Windl Dec 01 '19 at 00:40

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '19 at 05:17

4

NAME
       pr - convert text files for printing

Interleaving with single empty line, w/o adding header:

… | pr -dt

answered Dec 01 '19 at 05:17

poige

6,231

2

Note that pr also treats formfeed characters specially in its input (with the behaviour varying between implementations) – Stéphane Chazelas Dec 01 '19 at 07:57

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 01 '19 at 08:07

2

One more:

ls (options) | while read LINE; do
  echo "$LINE
"
done

answered Dec 01 '19 at 08:07

WGroleau

205

Use read -r to treat backslashes literally – wjandrea Dec 02 '19 at 02:03
Since there are no backslashes in my script nor in OP's question, this is irrelevant. – WGroleau Dec 02 '19 at 02:30
2

Sure, but if you come across a file called \a for example, it will be printed as a. It may be rare, but read -r will avoid the problem entirely. – wjandrea Dec 02 '19 at 02:38
2

it also won't work for filenames that contain new lines. There's a reason why ls output shouldn't be piped for further processing – phuclv Dec 02 '19 at 10:23
1

@wjandrea, the syntax to read a line is actually IFS= read -r line. echo also can't be used for arbitrary data. In any case using a shell loop to process text is generally a bad idea – Stéphane Chazelas Dec 02 '19 at 16:49
And yet such loops have almost never been a problem for me (a retired software engineer). The point about special characters is valid, but putting such characters in file names is rarely easy and never smart. – WGroleau Dec 02 '19 at 17:41

How to add new line between `ls -l` output

4 Answers4