The program
ls(1)
uses the environment variable
LS_COLORS
to determine the colors in which the filenames are to be displayed.
This environment variable is usually set by a command like
eval `dircolors some_path/dir_colors`
found in a system default shell initialization file, like
/etc/profile
or
/etc/csh.cshrc.
(See also
dircolors(1).)
Usually, the file used here is
/etc/DIR_COLORS
and can be overridden by a
.dir_colors
file in one's home directory.
This configuration file consists of several statements, one per line.
Anything right of a hash mark (#) is treated as a comment, if the
hash mark is at the beginning of a line or is preceded by at least one
whitespace.
Blank lines are ignored.
The
global
section of the file consists of any statement before the first
TERM
statement.
Any statement in the global section of the file is
considered valid for all terminal types.
Following the global section
is one or more
terminal-specific
sections, preceded by one or more
TERM
statements which specify the terminal types (as given by the
TERM
environment variable) the following declarations apply to.
It is always possible to override a global declaration by a subsequent
terminal-specific one.
The following statements are recognized; case is insignificant:
TERM terminal-type
Starts a terminal-specific section and specifies which terminal it
applies to.
Multiple
TERM
statements can be used to create a section which applies for several
terminal types.
COLOR yes|all|no|none|tty
(Slackware only; ignored by GNU
dircolors(1).)
Specifies that colorization should always be enabled (yes or
all), never enabled (no or none), or enabled only if
the output is a terminal (tty).
The default is no.
EIGHTBIT yes|no
(Slackware only; ignored by GNU
dircolors(1).)
Specifies that eight-bit ISO 8859 characters should be enabled by
default.
For compatibility reasons, this can also be specified as 1 for
yes or 0 for no.
The default is no.
OPTIONS options
(Slackware only; ignored by GNU
dircolors(1).)
Adds command-line options to the default
ls
command line.
The options can be any valid
ls
command-line options, and should include the leading minus sign.
Note that
dircolors
does not verify the validity of these options.
NORMAL color-sequence
Specifies the color used for normal (non-filename) text.
FILE color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a regular file.
DIR color-sequence
Specifies the color used for directories.
LINK color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a symbolic link.
ORPHAN color-sequence
Specifies the color used for an orphaned symbolic link (one which
points to a nonexistent file).
If this is unspecified,
ls
will use the
LINK
color instead.
MISSING color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a missing file (a nonexistent file which
nevertheless has a symbolic link pointing to it).
If this is unspecified,
ls
will use the
FILE
color instead.
FIFO color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a FIFO (named pipe).
SOCK color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a socket.
DOOR color-sequence
(Supported since fileutils 4.1)
Specifies the color used for a door (Solaris 2.5 and later).
BLK color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a block device special file.
CHR color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a character device special file.
EXEC color-sequence
Specifies the color used for a file with the executable attribute set.
LEFTCODE color-sequence
Specifies the
left code
for non-ISO 6429 terminals (see below).
RIGHTCODE color-sequence
Specifies the
right code
for non-ISO 6429 terminals (see below).
ENDCODE color-sequence
Specifies the
end code
for non-ISO 6429 terminals (see below).
*extensioncolor-sequence
Specifies the color used for any file that ends in extension.
.extensioncolor-sequence
Same as *.extension.
Specifies the color used for any file that
ends in .extension.
Note that the period is included in the
extension, which makes it impossible to specify an extension not
starting with a period, such as
~
for
emacs
backup files.
This form should be considered obsolete.
ISO 6429 (ANSI) Color Sequences
Most color-capable ASCII terminals today use ISO 6429 (ANSI) color sequences,
and many common terminals without color capability, including
xterm
and the widely used and cloned DEC VT100, will recognize ISO 6429 color
codes and harmlessly eliminate them from the output or emulate them.
ls
uses ISO 6429 codes by default, assuming colorization is enabled.
ISO 6429 color sequences are composed of sequences of numbers
separated by semicolons.
The most common codes are:
0 to restore default color
1 for brighter colors
4 for underlined text
5 for flashing text
30 for black foreground
31 for red foreground
32 for green foreground
33 for yellow (or brown) foreground
34 for blue foreground
35 for purple foreground
36 for cyan foreground
37 for white (or gray) foreground
40 for black background
41 for red background
42 for green background
43 for yellow (or brown) background
44 for blue background
45 for purple background
46 for cyan background
47 for white (or gray) background
Not all commands will work on all systems or display devices.
ls
uses the following defaults:
NORMAL 0 Normal (non-filename) text
FILE 0 Regular file
DIR 32 Directory
LINK 36 Symbolic link
ORPHAN undefined Orphaned symbolic link
MISSING undefined Missing file
FIFO 31 Named pipe (FIFO)
SOCK 33 Socket
BLK 44;37 Block device
CHR 44;37 Character device
EXEC 35 Executable file
A few terminal programs do not recognize the default
properly.
If all text gets colorized after you do a directory
listing, change the
NORMAL
and
FILE
codes to the numerical codes for your normal foreground and background
colors.
Other Terminal Types (Advanced Configuration)
If you have a color-capable (or otherwise highlighting) terminal (or
printer!) which uses a different set of codes, you can still generate
a suitable setup.
To do so, you will have to use the
LEFTCODE,
RIGHTCODE,
and
ENDCODE
definitions.
When writing out a filename,
ls
generates the following output sequence:
LEFTCODEtypecodeRIGHTCODEfilenameENDCODE,
where the
typecode
is the color sequence that depends on the type or name of file.
If the
ENDCODE
is undefined, the sequence
LEFTCODE NORMAL RIGHTCODE
will be used instead.
The purpose of the left- and rightcodes is
merely to reduce the amount of typing necessary (and to hide ugly
escape codes away from the user).
If they are not appropriate for
your terminal, you can eliminate them by specifying the respective
keyword on a line by itself.
NOTE:
If the
ENDCODE
is defined in the global section of the setup file, it
cannot
be undefined in a terminal-specific section of the file.
This means any
NORMAL
definition will have no effect.
A different
ENDCODE
can, however, be specified, which would have the same effect.
Escape Sequences
To specify control- or blank characters in the color sequences or
filename extensions, either C-style \-escaped notation or
stty-style
^-notation can be used.
The C-style notation
includes the following characters:
\a Bell (ASCII 7)
\b Backspace (ASCII 8)
\e Escape (ASCII 27)
\f Form feed (ASCII 12)
\n Newline (ASCII 10)
\r Carriage Return (ASCII 13)
\t Tab (ASCII 9)
\v Vertical Tab (ASCII 11)
\? Delete (ASCII 127)
\nnn Any character (octal notation)
\xnnn Any character (hexadecimal notation)
\_ Space
\\ Backslash (\)
\^ Caret (^)
\# Hash mark (#)
Please note that escapes are necessary to enter a space, backslash,
caret, or any control character anywhere in the string, as well as a
hash mark as the first character.
FILES
/etc/DIR_COLORS
System-wide configuration file.
~/.dir_colors
Per-user configuration file.
This page describes the
dir_colors
file format as used in the fileutils-4.1 package;
other versions may differ slightly.
NOTES
The default
LEFTCODE
and
RIGHTCODE
definitions, which are used by ISO 6429 terminals are:
This page is part of release 3.14 of the Linux
man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
