---

10.1.6 Formatting the file names ¶

These options change how file names themselves are printed.

You can specify the default value of the --quoting-style option with the environment variable QUOTING_STYLE. If that environment variable is not set, the default value is ‘shell-escape’ when the output is a terminal, and ‘literal’ otherwise.

‘-b’ ¶

‘--escape’

‘--quoting-style=escape’

Quote nongraphic characters in file names using alphabetic and octal backslash sequences like those used in C.

‘-N’ ¶

‘--literal’

‘--quoting-style=literal’

Do not quote file names. However, with ls nongraphic characters are still printed as question marks if the output is a terminal and you do not specify the --show-control-chars option.

‘-q’ ¶

‘--hide-control-chars’

Print question marks instead of nongraphic characters in file names. This is the default if the output is a terminal and the program is ls.

‘-Q’ ¶

‘--quote-name’

‘--quoting-style=c’

Enclose file names in double quotes and quote nongraphic characters as in C.

‘--quoting-style=word’ ¶

Use style word to quote file names and other strings that may contain arbitrary characters. The word should be one of the following:

‘literal’

Output strings as-is; this is the same as the --literal (-N) option.

‘shell’

Quote strings for the shell if they contain shell metacharacters or would cause ambiguous output. The quoting is suitable for POSIX-compatible shells like bash, but it does not always work for incompatible shells like csh.

‘shell-always’

Quote strings for the shell, even if they would normally not require quoting.

‘shell-escape’

Like ‘shell’, but also quote non-printable characters using the POSIX ‘$''’ syntax suitable for most shells. This is the most general format as any file name is represented unambiguously and safely. I.e., the full quoted string can be pasted back to the shell to refer to any file. Consequently, this is the default format used when ls is outputting to a tty. Note also that specifying the C locale with LC_ALL=C can be useful with this output format, to avoid character set conversion issues with some terminals; e.g., xterm always converting to unicode composed form. See also Quoting file names.

‘shell-escape-always’

Like ‘shell-escape’, but quote strings even if they would normally not require quoting.

‘c’

Quote strings as for C character string literals, including the surrounding double-quote characters; this is the same as the --quote-name (-Q) option.

‘c-maybe’

Quote strings as for C character string literals, except omit the surrounding double-quote if no escaping is required.

‘escape’

Quote strings as for C character string literals, except omit the surrounding double-quote characters; this is the same as the --escape (-b) option.

‘clocale’

Quote strings as for C character string literals, except use surrounding quotation marks appropriate for the locale.

‘locale’

Quote strings as for C character string literals, except use surrounding quotation marks appropriate for the locale, and quote 'like this' instead of "like this" in the default C locale. This looks nicer on many displays.

‘--show-control-chars’ ¶

Print nongraphic characters as-is in file names. This is the default unless the output is a terminal and the program is ls.