The following environment variables affect the execution of ls:
BLOCKSIZE If the environment variable BLOCKSIZE is set, the block counts (see -s)
will be displayed in units of that size block.
CLICOLOR Use ANSI color sequences to distinguish file types. See LSCOLORS below.
In addition to the file types mentioned in the -F option some extra
attributes (setuid bit set, etc.) are also displayed. The colorization
is dependent on a terminal type with the proper termcap(5) capabilities.
The default 'cons25' console has the proper capabilities, but to display
the colors in an xterm(1), for example, the TERM variable must be
set to 'xterm-color'. Other terminal types might require similar adjustments.
Colorization is silently disabled if the output isn’t directed to
a terminal unless the CLICOLOR_FORCE variable is defined.
CLICOLOR_FORCE Color sequences are normally disabled if the output isn’t directed to a
terminal. This can be overridden by setting this flag. The TERM vari-
able still needs to reference a color capable terminal however otherwise
it is not possible to determine which color sequences to use.
COLUMNS If this variable contains a string representing a decimal integer, it is
used as the column position width for displaying multiple-text-column
output. The ls utility calculates how many pathname text columns to dis-
play based on the width provided. (See -C and -x.)
LANG The locale to use when determining the order of day and month in the long
-l format output. See environ(7) for more information.
LSCOLORS The value of this variable describes what color to use for which
attribute when colors are enabled with CLICOLOR. This string is a con-
catenation of pairs of the format fb, where f is the foreground color and
b is the background color.
The color designators are as follows:
a black
b red
c green
d brown
e blue
f magenta
g cyan
h light grey
A bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
B bold red
C bold green
D bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
E bold blue
F bold magenta
G bold cyan
H bold light grey; looks like bright white
x default foreground or background
Note that the above are standard ANSI colors. The actual display can
differ depending on the color capabilities of the terminal in use.
The order of the attributes are as follows:
1. directory
2. symbolic link
3. socket
4. pipe
5. executable
6. block special
7. character special
8. executable with setuid bit set
9. executable with setgid bit set
10. directory writable to others, with sticky bit
11. directory writable to others, without sticky bit
The default is "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", i.e. blue foreground and default
background for regular directories, black foreground and red background
for setuid executables, etc.
LS_COLWIDTHS If this variable is set, it is considered to be a colon-delimited list of
minimum column widths. Unreasonable and insufficient widths are ignored
(thus zero signifies a dynamically sized column). Not all columns have
changeable widths. The fields are, in order: inode, block count, number
of links, user name, group name, flags, file size, file name.
TERM The CLICOLOR functionality depends on a terminal type with color capabil-
ities.
TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. See environ(7) for more
information.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite” ~ William Blake
ls - List information about file(s)