Question
I am trying to feed the results of ls into a Perl script. The man page for ls indicates that using the -x switch, ls should output one entry per line. However, it would seem that ls and ls -x produce exactly the same output. Now if I do ls -1, I get the desired output. So, what does the -x switch actually do?
Solution
I don't know where you read that -x lists one file per line, but that is wrong. The man page says -x lists files by lines instead of by columns (i.e. two consecutive files will be displayed in two consecutive lines instead of two consecutive columns).
The option you're looking for is -1.
OTHER TIPS
It's display in line not one entry per line
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21939434
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Russianls display
aaaaaaaaa ccccccccc eeeeeeeeee ggggggggg
bbbbbbbbb ddddddddd ffffffffff hhhhhhhhh
ls - x display
aaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbbbb ccccccccc ddddddddd
eeeeeeeee ffffffffff ggggggggg hhhhhhhhh
According to : man ls
* List entries in multiple columns by specifying either the -C or -x flag. The -C flag is the default format when output is to a tty. The ls command displays single
column output if file or directory names are too long.
so in fact, -x is another way of saying -C, which tells ls to output several files per columns.
You probably want:
ls -1
But if you are trying to feed a list of files to another command, do NOT use ls.
have a look at : http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls (item #1, but read also the whole thing, very informative)
