If you give ls the pathname of a directory, ls lists the entries in the directory:
%ls -l /home/joanne
total 554 -rw-r--r-- 1 joanne 15329 Oct 5 14:33 catalog -rw------- 1 joanne 58381 Oct 10 09:08 mail ...
With the -d option, ls lists the directory itself:
%ls -ld /home/joanne
drwxr-x--x 7 joanne 4608 Oct 10 10:13 /home/joanne
The -d option is especially handy when you're trying to list the names of some directories that match a wildcard. Compare the listing with and without the -d option:
%ls -Fd [a-c]*
arc/ bm/ ctrl/ atcat.c cdecl/ atl.c.Z cleanscript.c %ls -F [a-c]*
atcat.c atl.c.Z cleanscript.c arc: BugsEtc.Z arcadd.c arcext.c.Z arcmisc.c.Z ... bm: Execute.c.Z MakeDesc.c.Z MkDescVec.c.Z Search.c.Z ...
To list only the directory names, see the tip in article 15.10 .
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