An excuse to write some C code for Linux-like systems.

l is my take on ls. Intended to compatible with GNU, BSD, and POSIX ls where it makes sense, but add some options to make it more useful to me.

l -D displays only directories.

l -V follows and displays symlink information, e.g.

$ l -V link_to_link_to_file
link_to_link_to_file -> link_to_file -> file

with appropriate colors (-G or -K) or flags (-F or -O) if requested.

-p displays permissions for the current user, hopefully making it more useful than the -rwxr-xr-x user group format of ls -l, e.g.

$ l -p file_i_can_only_read
r-- file_i_can_only_read

l -O prints directory names inside square brackets and executables inside asterisks, e.g.

$ l -O
[dir1]  [dir2]  *exe*   file

• directories only (-D)
• show all (including hidden files) (-a)
• list subdirectories recursively (-R)

• show inode number field (-i)
• show size in blocks (-s)
• show file modes, e.g. -rwxr-xr-x. (-M or -m)
• show link count (-N)
• show file owner (-o)
• show file group (-g)
• show size in bytes (-B or -b)
• show file modification time (-T)
• show file change time (-Tc)
• show file access time (-Tu)
• append a flag showing the file's type (-F) makes -H default to off
• append a flag showing the file's type - old BSD style (-O)
• long format (-l, same as -MNogBT1) makes -H default to off
• show numeric owner and group instead of looking up their names (-n)
• show time in ISO 8601 format (-I), e.g. 2012-05-30 20:30:40
• show file symlink chain (-V), e.g. link1 -> link2 -> file

• follow symlinks (show information about symlink target, -L)
• don't follow symlinks (show information about symlink itself, -P)
• follow symlinks to directories specified as command line arguments (-H, defaults to on unless -P, -F, or -l were given)

If -H is not specified:

• if -L is specified, -H is enabled; if -P is specified, -H is disabled
• else if -F or -l are specified, -H is disabled
• otherwise, -H is enabled

• columns (-C)
• rows (-x)
• one-per-line (-1)

-C is the default if output is a terminal, otherwise -1.

• sort by name (default)
• sort by size (-S)
• sort by mtime (modification time, -t)
• sort by ctime (change time, -tc) just -c is sufficient if neither -T nor -l were given
• sort by atime (access time, -tu) just -u is sufficient if neither -T nor -l were given
• sort by version (numeric order, -v)
• reverse sort (-r)
• don't sort (-f or -U)

• print control characters as question marks (-q)
• print control characters using C-style escapes (-e)
• disable escaping (-E)

-q is the default if output is a terminal, otherwise -E.

• sort by btime (creation time, a.k.a. birth time, -b, or maybe -U)
• show file ACLs (-A?)
• human-readable file sizes (-h?)
• file sizes in megabytes and gigabytes (-M, -G?)

• locale and Unicode support
• other stuff

• remove -f option (same as -U)
• make -e the default instead of -q?
• -I <pattern> to ignore files matching <pattern>
• file ACLs and extended attributes
• list major/minor numbers for block/character devices
• customizable colors
• colors and flags for files with setuid/setgid/sticky bits or capabilities
• sub-second times for sorting and display
• SELinux (and other security systems) support (e.g. . in modes, -Z flag)
• escape all fields, e.g. usernames, etc.
• tabular output format, e.g. <field>[\t<field>]*\n (no need for null separation given -e flag)

• -A - not implemented
• -b - adds a file size in bytes column (use -e to escape file names)
• -D - lists only directories, rather than GNU Emacs Dired mode
• -g - adds a group column, rather than useless long-without-owner
• -m - adds a modes column, rather than stream mode
• -o - adds an owner column, rather than long-without-group (could rename to -O if -o is really needed)
• -p - adds a permissions column, rather than appending slash to directories (use -F or -O)
• -H - only follows links to directories, similar to GNU ls rather than BSD ls
• -f - only disables sorting, similar to BSD ls rather than GNU ls

You need a C99 compiler, GNU make, and ncurses and libacl development packages.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install gcc make libncurses-dev libacl1-dev.
Red Hat/Fedora: sudo yum install gcc make ncurses-devel libacl-devel.

Then, run make.

Run make install. Files are installed under /usr/local by default. Install somewhere else by doing make install DESTDIR=<path>.

Patches and pull requests are welcome.