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bash scripting - what does "ls .." (ls with double dot) do?

My homework asked me to find what ls .. does.

I tried to search the internet but I couldn't find any answer to the question.

Does someone know what this command does?

Solution

  • .. is an entry in the current directory that refers to the parent of the current directory. It's not a special convention used just by ls. For example:

    $ cd /usr/bin
$ pwd
/usr/bin
$ cd ..
$ pwd
/usr
$ [ -d .. ] && echo "It's a directory"
It's a directory
$ stat ..
<output specific to your installed version of stat>