Re: binary output from ls

[Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net>]

Ivan Glushkov wrote:
> David Kirchner wrote:
>
> > On 2/15/06, Ivan Glushkov <glushkov@mail.desy.de> wrote:
> >  
> >
> > > Hi,
> > > if I issue ls . > filelist.txt
> > > as user I get:
> > > a binary file like:
> > >
> > > ESC[0mESC[0mAcro3nKTzaESC[0m
> > > ESC[0mfilelist.logESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;34mgconfd-glushkovESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;34mkde-glushkovESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;34mkeyring-CXhOCWESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;34mksocket-glushkovESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;35mmapping-glushkovESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;34morbit-glushkovESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;34mssh-mmCRYB8783ESC[0m
> > > ESC[01;35mxmms_glushkov.0ESC[0m
> > > ESC[0mzmanImD0upESC[0m
> > > ESC[m
> > > ...
> > >
> > > if I do that like root, I get the list of files as expected.
> > > What is the difference? Both root and the user are using the same shell.
> > >   
> >
> >
> > Unfortunately, by default, ls uses colors to highlight directories and
> > executables (and others). The default alias provided in .bashrc, with
> > a stock install, is 'ls --color=auto'. auto is supposed to tell ls to
> > ensure it is connected to a tty (instead of a file) before spitting
> > out colors. If that alias is 'ls --color=always', it will always use
> > colors, regardless of the output.
> > The solution will be found in your .bashrc file -- either change the
> > alias to 'ls --color=auto' or remove it entirely, and it should work
> > OK.
> >
> >
> >  
> Thank you all,
>
> Just for the record:
> I am using zsh, and I was having in my ~/.zshrc the following line:
>
> alias "ls=ls --color"
>
> now I changed that to:
>
> alias "ls=ls --color=auto"
>
> and everything looks fine.

For those cases where you don't/can't see color, you may
find that the -F option to ls gives you the same information,
if in not quite so obvious a way. I used to use -F all the time,
and had it aliased that way permanently.

Mike
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