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unixls

ls -lR * lists all the files in current and subdirectories , but ls -lR *filename* does not list files in subdirectories

ls -lR * lists all the files in current and subdirectories , but ls -lR filename does not list files in subdirectories and only lists the files matching filename in current directory why so ? is there a way to list all the files whose name contains a particular text without using find and only using ls .

Solution

  • According to the man page ls lists information about the filenames specified. The shell (bash, sh, zsh etc) expands the * to a list of filenames, so the command being execute is

    ls -lR filename1 filename2 filename3 ...

    If one of those filenames is a directory then ls will list it recursively.

    In your second case

    ls -lR filename

    If that filename is the name of a directory, ls will list the contents of the directory recusively, otherwise it will give you details of the file.

    To do what you want you will need to do

    ls -lR | grep filename

    Or use find as you say