Solved ls output format

[balanga]

Are there any command line switches to format the output of ls() so that it only shows name size and time?

 

[covacat]

you can use stat(1)
stat -f "%N %z %Sm" -t "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" *

 

[tembun]

Another way to do this would be:
ls -l |awk '{if (NF == 9) {print $9, $5, $6, $7}}'

 

[atax1a]

Another way to do this would be:
ls -l |awk '{if (NF == 9) {print $9, $5, $6, $7}}'

we would avoid doing this. the output of ls is not stable or parseable, it is for humans to read.

 

[tembun]

we would avoid doing this. the output of ls is not stable or parseable, it is for humans to read.

Sure, I myself would go with stat(1) as covacat suggested, but just as a quick, dirty, but working solution.

By the way, I didn't know that the output of ls(1) is not stable. Does that mean that say -l output can potentially be different in different systems (implementations)?

 

[atax1a]

yeah. linux ls -l has a different output format than bsd ls -l, plus the user's environment can unduly affect the output format too. or you'll upgrade and the format will change. thus, we never parse the output of ls.

 

[Kai Burghardt]

The output of ls is implementation‑defined if the destination is a terminal. Pipe it and you’re fine (if the ls implementation claims to be POSIX™‐compliant). I believe libxo(3) support will return eventually.​

Are there any command line switches to format the output of ls() so that it only shows name size and time?

To answer your question: No.​

stat -f "%N %z %Sm" -t "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" *

I don’t like having the shell expand file names (consider a directory containing many long file names, you may exceed LINE_MAX). Since FreeBSD version 15.0 find(1) output can be formatted.​

# -s   : traverse file hierarchy in lexicographic order
# %20s : file size in bytes, padded with leading space so it occupies 20 cells
# %8Tc : file’s modification time expressed as preferred in current locale
# %f   : file name
find -s ./ -maxdepth 1 -printf '%20s  %8Tc  %f\n'

 

[cracauer@]

Another way to do this would be:
ls -l |awk '{if (NF == 9) {print $9, $5, $6, $7}}'

Filenames can have spaces in them. That would make $9 unstable.

 

[balanga]

The purpose of the exercise was to change the output format of files in emacs's dired which I though could be controlled by various ls flags.

My intention is to get dired looking more like mc.

Now I have found out that this can be controlled using:-

(setq dired-hide-details-preserved-columns '(5 6 7 8))

so I think I can leave things there.

Many thanks to the people who made suggestions.