VDIR(1)

📦
version 0.12.0 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

👑 VDIR(1) — the manual page, but make it a group chat 💅

okay bestie, welcome to VDIR, section 1 of the General Commands Manual 🫶 this is the page for when you literally just want a listing of a directory and you're not in the mood for dotfiles ruining the vibe. let's get into it ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

vdir — List directory contents. Ignore files and directories starting with a '.' by default.

also, real talk, mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. that's not a suggestion, that's the law 💀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

vdir [OPTION]... [FILE]...

that's it. that's the whole shape of it. options in, files in, listing out 🎀

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

List directory contents. Ignore files and directories starting with a '.' by default.

and one more time for the people in the back: mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. ⭐

💖 OPTIONS 💖

okay this is the big one. there are SO many flags and honestly every single one is here, no skipping, i would never do that to you.

  • --help — Print help information.
  • --format — Set the display format.
  • -C — Display the files in columns.
  • -l, --long — Display detailed information.
  • -x — List entries in rows instead of in columns.
  • -T, --tabsize <COLS> — Assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8.
  • -m — List entries separated by commas.
  • --zero — List entries separated by ASCII NUL characters.
  • -D, --dired — generate output designed for Emacs' dired (Directory Editor) mode
  • --hyperlink[=<WHEN>] [default: never] — hyperlink file names WHEN. Possible values:
    • always
    • auto
    • never
  • -1 — List one file per line.
  • -o — Long format without group information. Identical to --format=long with --no-group.
  • -g — Long format without owner information.
  • -n, --numeric-uid-gid — -l with numeric UIDs and GIDs.
  • --quoting-style — Set quoting style. Possible values:
    • literal
    • locale
    • shell
    • shell-escape
    • shell-always
    • shell-escape-always
    • clocale
    • c
    • escape
  • -N, --literal — Use literal quoting style. Equivalent to --quoting-style=literal
  • -b, --escape — Use escape quoting style. Equivalent to --quoting-style=escape
  • -Q, --quote-name — Use C quoting style. Equivalent to --quoting-style=c
  • -q, --hide-control-chars — Replace control characters with '?' if they are not escaped.
  • --show-control-chars — Show control characters 'as is' if they are not escaped.
  • --time <field> — Show time in <field>: access time (-u): atime, access, use; change time (-t): ctime, status. modification time: mtime, modification. birth time: birth, creation;
  • -c — If the long listing format (e.g., -l, -o) is being used, print the status change time (the 'ctime' in the inode) instead of the modification time. When explicitly sorting by time (--sort=time or -t) or when not using a long listing format, sort according to the status change time.
  • -u — If the long listing format (e.g., -l, -o) is being used, print the status access time instead of the modification time. When explicitly sorting by time (--sort=time or -t) or when not using a long listing format, sort according to the access time.
  • --hide <PATTERN> — do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN (overridden by -a or -A)
  • -I, --ignore <PATTERN> — do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN
  • -B, --ignore-backups — Ignore entries which end with ~.
  • --sort <field> — Sort by <field>: name, none (-U), time (-t), size (-S), extension (-X) or width. Possible values:
    • name
    • none
    • time
    • size
    • version
    • extension
    • width
  • -S — Sort by file size, largest first.
  • -t — Sort by modification time (the 'mtime' in the inode), newest first.
  • -v — Natural sort of (version) numbers in the filenames.
  • -X — Sort alphabetically by entry extension.
  • -U — Do not sort; list the files in whatever order they are stored in the directory. This is especially useful when listing very large directories, since not doing any sorting can be noticeably faster.
  • -L, --dereference — When showing file information for a symbolic link, show information for the file the link references rather than the link itself.
  • --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir — Do not follow symlinks except when they link to directories and are given as command line arguments.
  • -H, --dereference-command-line — Do not follow symlinks except when given as command line arguments.
  • -G, --no-group — Do not show group in long format.
  • --author — Show author in long format. On the supported platforms, the author always matches the file owner.
  • -a, --all — Do not ignore hidden files (files with names that start with '.').
  • -A, --almost-all — In a directory, do not ignore all file names that start with '.', only ignore '.' and '..'.
  • -f — List all files in directory order, unsorted. Equivalent to -aU. Disables --color unless explicitly specified.
  • -d, --directory — Only list the names of directories, rather than listing directory contents. This will not follow symbolic links unless one of --dereference-command-line (-H), --dereference (-L), or --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir is specified.
  • -h, --human-readable — Print human readable file sizes (e.g. 1K 234M 56G).
  • -k, --kibibytes — default to 1024-byte blocks for file system usage; used only with -s and per directory totals
  • --si — Print human readable file sizes using powers of 1000 instead of 1024.
  • --block-size <BLOCK_SIZE> — scale sizes by BLOCK_SIZE when printing them
  • -i, --inode — print the index number of each file
  • -r, --reverse — Reverse whatever the sorting method is e.g., list files in reverse alphabetical order, youngest first, smallest first, or whatever.
  • -R, --recursive — List the contents of all directories recursively.
  • -w, --width <COLS> — Assume that the terminal is COLS columns wide.
  • -s, --size — print the allocated size of each file, in blocks
  • --color — Color output based on file type. Possible values:
    • always
    • auto
    • never
  • --indicator-style — Append indicator with style WORD to entry names: none (default), slash (-p), file-type (--file-type), classify (-F). Possible values:
    • none
    • slash
    • file-type
    • classify
  • -F, --classify[=<when>] — Append a character to each file name indicating the file type. Also, for regular files that are executable, append '*'. The file type indicators are '/' for directories, '@' for symbolic links, '|' for FIFOs, '=' for sockets, '>' for doors, and nothing for regular files. when may be omitted, or one of:
    • none - Do not classify. This is the default.
    • auto - Only classify if standard output is a terminal.
    • always - Always classify.

Specifying --classify and no when is equivalent to --classify=always. This will not follow symbolic links listed on the command line unless the --dereference-command-line (-H), --dereference (-L), or --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir options are specified.

Possible values:

  • always
  • auto
  • never
  • --file-type — Same as --classify, but do not append '*'
  • -p — Append / indicator to directories.
  • --time-style <TIME_STYLE> — time/date format with -l; see TIME_STYLE below
  • --full-time — like -l --time-style=full-iso
  • -Z, --context — print any security context of each file
  • --group-directories-first — group directories before files; can be augmented with a --sort option, but any use of --sort=none (-U) disables grouping
  • -V, --version — Print version

⭐ EXTRA ⭐

The TIME_STYLE argument can be full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale or +FORMAT. FORMAT is interpreted like in date. Also the TIME_STYLE environment variable sets the default style to use. 🕐

💜 VERSION 💜

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

View documentation for the original command:

tldr ls

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project https://tldr.sh under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail. 🥲

no cap bestie: it literally says a work in progress, so if an example flops, that's a known thing, not a you problem 🫶

okay that's the whole page, every flag, every value, every default, all of it, i would never gatekeep 💅 go forth and list some directories, main character 👑

sign-off time: this lovely thing is dated 2026-09-25 and it's from the uutils coreutils era, tagged v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0 — and yes, it's still VDIR(1), iconic behavior, periodt 🎀

📦 where this page comes from