Directory listings

IanW · External Since: Jul 24, 2007 Posts: 2

Hi

I want to get a directory listing from our Linux server that I can then load
into Excel, preserving columns for sorting purposes.

I'm only really interested in the filename, date and size. The nearest I've
got so far is using "ls -go" and that would be fine except for the format of
the date. Ideally I want it in dd/mm/yyyy format but it lists it like "Jun 5
2006", and even more of a hinderance is that when the file date is this year
it puts in the time instead of the year!

Had a look through the help for ls but can't seem to see anything to do with
formatting of dates. Any ideas?

Ian

Chris · External Since: May 27, 2005 Posts: 473

IanW wrote:
> Hi
>
> I want to get a directory listing from our Linux server that I can then load
> into Excel, preserving columns for sorting purposes.
>
> I'm only really interested in the filename, date and size. The nearest I've
> got so far is using "ls -go" and that would be fine except for the format of
> the date. Ideally I want it in dd/mm/yyyy format but it lists it like "Jun 5
> 2006", and even more of a hinderance is that when the file date is this year
> it puts in the time instead of the year!
>
> Had a look through the help for ls but can't seem to see anything to do with
> formatting of dates. Any ideas?
>

You could try using 'find' with the -printf option. The output from
'find' is much more configurable than 'ls'.

Robert Harris · External Since: Aug 14, 2005 Posts: 166

IanW wrote:
> Hi
>
> I want to get a directory listing from our Linux server that I can then load
> into Excel, preserving columns for sorting purposes.
>
> I'm only really interested in the filename, date and size. The nearest I've
> got so far is using "ls -go" and that would be fine except for the format of
> the date. Ideally I want it in dd/mm/yyyy format but it lists it like "Jun 5
> 2006", and even more of a hinderance is that when the file date is this year
> it puts in the time instead of the year!
>
> Had a look through the help for ls but can't seem to see anything to do with
> formatting of dates. Any ideas?
>
> Ian
>
>
The format of the date listing depends on your current Locale. For
example, on my system (Ubuntu), if I type:

LANG=C; ls -go

I get the same format as you, but if I type:

LANG=en_GB.utf8; ls -go

I get dates and times in ISO format, like 2006-06-05

Also on my system, which uses GNU ls, if I type:

ls -go --time-style=long-iso

I get dates and times in ISO format whatever locale is set.

"man ls" tells most of the story, as ever.

Robert

IanW · External Since: Jul 24, 2007 Posts: 2

"Robert Harris" <robert.f.harris.TakeThisOut@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:FGkpi.8733$%v3.2630@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk...

> ls -go --time-style=long-iso
>
> I get dates and times in ISO format whatever locale is set.

That does the job nicely. Many thanks

Ian