Unix Command - ls

In the Unix environment, the most commonly used commands are: cd and ls.

ls provides all files within the current directory, with options to view details and recursive traversal of subdirectories.

This project re-implements the ls command, with options for:

• full details (-l)
• recursive traversal (-R)
• hidden files (-a)
• sorting by time (-t)
• sorting in reverse (-r)

This implementation also supports:

• multiple arguments
• multiple options

Usage

To compile repository, run make.

Then, use command:

./ft_ls [options] [files...]
options: -lRart

How it works

Using system calls, file information is stored within a singly linked list.

Options are parsed and stored within a single flags variable.

Based on options and arguments, appropriate data is printed on console. Sorting uses a recursive insertion sort, and runs O(n) time with O(n^2) worst case. However, average runtime runs closer to optimal as lists are used almost sorted from pre-sorts.

Notes

My ft_ls uses the size of current terminal window to determine column width, while system ls uses preset defaults, causing differences in horizontal aligmnent of columns.

Things to improve:

• ft_ls does not handle sticky-bits when showing file permissions
• additional flags like -1 (shows one entry per line)
• colors. We always need colors