What does `ls --directory` stand for?

In my Ubuntu version the man ls has the next info about --directory:

list directory entries instead of contents, and do not dereference symbolic links

So I'm a little confused how it works. I used the command ls --directory and I expected a list with all directories but instead I got .

So what exactly does ls --directory or ls -d do?

5 Answers

$ man ls
...
-d, --directory list directories themselves, not their contents

The current directory is represented as . so that's what ls -d is listing.

The directories inside the current directory are contents of the directory, and are therefore not shown with this option.

I use the -d option in an alias to display hidden files and directories

alias l.='ls -dC .* --color'

Without -d, this will list out the contents of the hidden directories too, which isn't what I want.

Another use for it is when I want to see metadata of a directory using the -l option, not its contents:

$ ls -ld playground
drwxr-xr-x 72 zanna zanna 12288 Mar 1 23:10 playground

If you want a list of directories in the current directory you can use

ls -d */

Using ls only with -d is almost useless. It gives information about the directory itself. It does not list its contents.

That is why you do not see a list of directories. The directories that you expected to see are the "contents" of the current directory

If you run simply ls -d it shows the current directory by ..

If makes sense to run it with other keys like -l.

ls -ld will show permissions of the current directory.

pilot6@Pilot6:~$ ls -ld
drwxrwxr-x 1 pilot6 pilot6 2570 Mar 4 12:14 .

You can also see permissions of any other directory like

ls -ld /bin
pilot6@Pilot6:~$ ls -ld /bin
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2584 Feb 25 15:19 /bin

If you run ls -l without -d you will have the list of all permissions for files and folders in the current directory. If you do not need it, that's a good example for ls -ld usage.

You can list directories in the current one by

ls -d */

Using ls -d by itself is fairly useless because without a parameter it always returns .. After you specify a parameter it makes sense though. For example if your user name is rick and you want to see all the directories in your home use:

$ ls -d /home/rick/*/
/home/rick/AAC/ /home/rick/EnhanceIO/ /home/rick/silentcast/
/home/rick/assembly/ /home/rick/EnhanceIO-master/ /home/rick/Templates/
/home/rick/bin/ /home/rick/log/ /home/rick/test/
/home/rick/Desktop/ /home/rick/Music/ /home/rick/tmpe/
/home/rick/Documents/ /home/rick/Pictures/ /home/rick/Videos/
/home/rick/Downloads/ /home/rick/Public/

Let me explain with examples:

1. ls: list contents of a directory

2. ls -d or ls --directory: list directories themselves, not their contents

Examples:

ls -d android-sdk-linux/
# result
android-sdk-linux/
ls android-sdk-linux/
# result
add-ons build-tools platforms platform-tools SDK Readme.txt temp tools

Your case of ls -d this says to list only show me the directory I am in not its content (i.e. . in Linux terms), so the result is: ..

But if you had said: ls, then you will see all that is present in the current directory ..

ls -d list directories them self instead of their content. Files are listed as normal. Look into man lsto se description of all options.

. is the directory it self, the same you use when running a command from current directory, ./runscript.sh

.. is parent directory, the parent to the current directore, as in cd .. to move at step up in directory hieracy