Show the year while listing files in the current directory

Question

I am working on a Red Hat server. The commands ls -l or ll giving me the date and time in format +"%b %-d %H:%M".

I want to list the files in a way where the year when each was file created would appear within the date.

How is that possible?

score 148 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 10 '12 at 07:13

148

You can use man ls and here you can find --time-style parameter. Or you can use:

ls --full-time.

answered Oct 10 '12 at 07:13

Jan Marek

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Example for time style `ls -l --time-style=+%F` – sobi3ch Sep 19 '17 at 06:56
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For those who has already `ll` set as `ls -la` or something else, `ll --full-time` also work. – Meetai.com Feb 24 '19 at 03:05
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ls -l --time-style=long-iso shows cleaner output since doesn't print seconds/miliseconds – Daniel Cambría Dec 29 '19 at 21:18

score 22 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '22 at 05:05

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ls -l will display month, day and year - since, according to BSD man page: If the modification time of the file is more than 6 months in the past or future, then the year of the last modification is displayed in place of the hour and minute fields.

So, to make sure that year will always be shown, use:

ls -l --time-style=long-iso (GNU/Linux)

ls -lT will display complete time information in BSD (MacOS)

edited Jun 20 '22 at 05:05

Community

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answered Jan 06 '18 at 21:19

Daniel Cambría

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Your GNU/Linux variant should work on any GNU system, not only the one with Linux: `ls` comes from GNU coreutils there. – Ruslan Feb 07 '20 at 06:54
I think so, but not tested with another operating systems using GNU utils, only Linux :) – Daniel Cambría Feb 09 '20 at 21:35

G_Style · Answer 3 · 2018-05-24T21:24:45.540

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In addition to Jan Marek's answer.... I've noticed you can get away with just:

ls --full or ls --fu

which will do the same thing as ls --full-time as he described. Thanks Stéphane Chazelas. Now I type ls --fu everywhere. :)

edited May 24 '18 at 21:24

answered May 24 '18 at 14:36

G_Style

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score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 28 '15 at 17:47

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Since you asked for the year, ls -lac is an easy one to remember if, like me, you use ls -la all the time. The c gives you ctime which will display a year if it's not the current year or the hour and minute if it is.

answered Jul 28 '15 at 17:47

PhilT

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I like this. A lot less noise in the output and only one letter to remember in the future. – Eric May 08 '17 at 17:18
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This seems to change the behavior of `ls` to **date changed** rather than the default **date modified**. – Mateen Ulhaq Apr 22 '18 at 01:41
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`ls -l` displays date and time for dates that are in the past six months, and date and year for other dates. ctime can be in the past six months just as much as mtime (modification date) can, so `ls -lac` can display times (instead of years) just as much as `ls -la` can. Besides, as Mateen Ulhaq points out, `ls -lac` does not display the same dates that ``ls -la`` does. This answer is wrong. – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' Apr 22 '18 at 02:46
This `-c` is actually a modifier for `-l` and `-t`. It changes the display style for the former, and sorting criteria for the latter. According to manual: `−c Use time of last modification of the file status information instead of last modification of the file itself for sorting (−t) or writing (−l).` – foxesque Nov 02 '22 at 12:56

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 17 '21 at 08:41

As an alternative to --full-time and its iso-format you can also use the --time-style parameter appending the values you need:
ls . -l --time-style=+%Y/%m/%d
or +%y-%m-%d, maybe listing with -al instead (hidden files too)... That depends on your requirements.

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Jan 21 '19 at 15:08

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If you're using busybox (embedded distros, e.g. OpenWRT, LEDE), the switch you're looking for is -e for versions up to 1.26.2 and --full-time for 1.27.0 and above (see the commit that changed it).

edited Jan 21 '19 at 15:08

Stéphane Chazelas

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answered Dec 14 '18 at 18:54

Codebling

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`-e` also works with Solaris `ls` and ast-open's, so it's actually closer to a standard than GNU's `--full-time`. A shame that busybox removed it in newer versions. – Stéphane Chazelas Jan 21 '19 at 15:37
@StéphaneChazelas didn't know that! Thanks for the edit – Codebling Jan 21 '19 at 17:52

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 15 '22 at 14:18

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This will work on macOS Catalina and later:

ls -altT /path/to/some/dir

edited Jan 15 '22 at 14:18

Stephen Kitt

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answered Jan 21 '19 at 14:44

象嘉道

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Show the year while listing files in the current directory

7 Answers7