On Mon 11 Feb 2019 at 17:48:23 (-0000), Curt wrote: > On 2019-02-11, Greg Wooledge <wool...@eeg.ccf.org> wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 05:26:34PM -0000, Curt wrote: > >> I follow your logic. Give me everything in /etc/skel/ beginning with a dot. > >> Which works. But apparently a dot is also something else. Like a directory. > >> > >> curty@einstein:~$ ls /etc/skel/.* > >> /etc/skel/.bash_logout /etc/skel/.bashrc /etc/skel/.profile > >> > >> /etc/skel/.: > >> > >> /etc/skel/..: > >> > >> (etc.--the contents of /etc/ > >> > >> I'm not sure what it all means. > > > > The shell glob .* expands to everything in the current directory that > > begins with a dot. Which includes "." and "..". > > > > "." is the current directory. ".." is the parent directory. E.g. when > > you type "cd .." it moves you "up" to the parent directory. > > > > Asking ls to show you .* is usually a bad idea, precisely because it > > expands to a list which includes . and .. and does exactly what you > > just described. > > > > This is why the ls command has -a and -A options. > > Thank you. That all makes perfect sense.
If you want just the dotfiles, then ls -dF .[^.]* might be helpful. You don't need the -dF, but -d will prevent it listing any .dotdirectories (important in your $HOME) and -F will reveal those directories (when you're not using -l) and other non-regular-files. Cheers, David.
