NOTE: this project has moved to https://gitlab.com/js-d-coder/lsi-python3

lsi (a command-line utility)

ls command alternative (not a replacement). Output is either cleanly formatted table or string of null terminated file names parseable by xargs command. Default behaviour is to show only non-hidden files and directories of directory passed or current directory if no directory is given, in table format.
It attempts to solve some problems with traditional UNIX ls command:

• Output is in table format and not garbled like in traditional UNIX ls command. (See screen shot below)
• File names is single qouted to help distinguish files with spaces in their names. (See screen shot below)
• You can safely parse its output. (See explanation below)

Any improvement or feature addition request is most welcome. I will be adding more features myself in future.

Written in Python for UNIX like OS
Requires Python version 3.3 or later
Version 2

Usage

lsi [-h] [-1 | -x] [-n | -i | -a] [-d | -f] [-s | -u | -t | -c | -z]
           [-r] [-v]
           [FILE [FILE ...]]

ls command alternative. Output is either cleanly formatted table or string of
null terminated file names parseable by xargs command. Default behaviour is to
show only non-hidden files and directories of directory passed or current
directory if no directory is given, in table format.

positional arguments:
  FILE                  space separated list of any numbers of files and/or
                        directories; if not given, current directory will be
                        assumed

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -1                    output on file per line
  -x, --xargs           output will be string of null terminated file names;
                        can be used as input to other commands like xargs;
                        absense of this option makes output to be a table,
                        which is default
  -n, --non-hidden      show files and/or directories with names that does not
                        start with a dot; this is default
  -i, --hidden          show files and/or directories with names starting with
                        a dot
  -a, --include-hidden  show all files and/or directories
  -d, --only-dir        show directories only and not regular file
  -f, --only-files      show only regular files and not directories
  -f, --only-files      show only regular files and not directories
  -s                    sort contents of given directories alphabetically in
                        ascending order; this is default
  -u                    sort contents of given directories by access time,
                        newest first
  -t                    sort contents of given directories by modification
                        time, newest first
  -c                    sort contents of given directories by time of last
                        modification of file status information, newest first
  -z                    sort contents of given directories by their size,
                        largest first, note this works well only with regular
                        files
  -r                    reverse order while sorting; can be used in conjuction
                        with option -s, -u, -t or -c; in absense of these
                        options, sort alphabetically in descending order
  -v, --version         output version information and exit

Examples

# show all non-hidden files and directories
$ lsi
'very-long-name3'  'very-long-name2'  'very-long-name1'  'long-name5'
'long-name4'       'long-name3'       'long-name2'       'long-name1'
'file15'           'file14'           'file13'           'file12'
'file11'           'file10'           'file9'            'file8'
'file7'            'file6'            'file5'            'file4'
'file3'            'file2'            'file1'            'directory5/'
'directory4/'      'directory3/'      'directory2/'      'directory1/'
'dir15/'           'dir14/'           'dir13/'           'dir12/'
'dir11/'           'dir10/'           'dir9/'            'dir8/'
'dir7/'            'dir6/'            'dir5/'            'dir4/'
'dir3/'            'dir2/'            'dir1/'

# show all directories
$ lsi -da
'.hidden-dir5/'  '.hidden-dir4/'  '.hidden-dir3/'  '.hidden-dir2/'  '.hidden-dir1/'
'hidden-files/'  'directory5/'    'directory4/'    'directory3/'    'directory2/'
'directory1/'    'dir15/'         'dir14/'         'dir13/'         'dir12/'
'dir11/'         'dir10/'         'dir9/'          'dir8/'          'dir7/'
'dir6/'          'dir5/'          'dir4/'          'dir3/'          'dir2/'
'dir1/'

You should not parse the output of ls command, but you can safely parse the output of lsi

# move all hidden files to hidden-files directory
$ lsi -ifx | xargs -r0 mv -t hidden-files

Requirement

lsi requires Python version 3 installed before you run it

# apt install python3 # Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian
# pacman -S python    # Arch Linux
# yum install python3 # Fedora
# pkg install python3 # \*BSD

Installation

(For Ubuntu, Fedora, Linux Mint, Debian, Arch Linux and other Linux distributions; *BSD and other UNIX like OS)

$ git clone https://github.com/js-d-coder/lsi-python3.git
$ cd lsi-python3
# cp lsi /usr/local/bin/
# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/lsi

Screenshot (lsi vs ls)

License

MIT
Copyright (c) 2018 js-d-coder (www.github.com/js-d-coder)

Contributing

This project makes use of PEP8 code style. Linter used is pycodestyle. NOTE: Only exception is max-line-length which is set to 120.