Re: How to only show symbol link with ls?

[Bob Proulx]

Peng Yu wrote:
> I don't see an option to list only symbolic link with ls. Could
> somebody let me know if there is such an option?

I don't quite understand the nature of your question.  'ls' lists
files in directories.  There aren't specific options to 'ls' to only
list files of certain types.  For example there isn't a way to only
have 'ls' list out named pipes, or just directories, or just character
devices, and so on.  That isn't its job.

If you want to traverse a directory structure and select files based
upon specific attributes then you should use 'find' for this.  For
example to list out only symbolic links use something like this:

  $ ln -s bar foo
  $ find . -maxdepth 1 -type l -print
  ./foo

Almost any particular format can be produced using find's -printf with
the appropriate format specification.

Of course you can also pipe the output of 'ls' to a filter and select
based upon the strings.  I often do this.

  $ ls -Clog | grep ^l
  lrwxrwxrwx  1          3 2010-02-20 14:56 foo -> bar
  $ ls -Clog | grep ^d
  drwxr-xr-x  6       4096 2008-03-26 06:30 Maildir/

Bob