How to use ls command to show all the files including hidden files, but not showing the files named '.' and '..'

Question

The working directories contains several subdirectories, and each subdirectory contains some hidden files that start with ..

How could I use the ls command to display all the files including the hidden file, but I want to exclude the files name as . and ..?

I tried ls -a | grep -v '^\.' but it does not show files in the subdirectories. And the option -ignore does not work, too.

Answer 1

If you want ls to show the sub-directories, you need to add the -R.

Your grep -v '^\.' will remove everything that starts with a ., so including the hidden files. A better pattern would be to explicitly remove just the . and .. with '^\.$|^\.\.$'. The more specific you make the patterns, the less problems you have that unwanted lines are removed.

Putting that all together gives:

 ls -aR  | egrep -v '^\.$|^\.\.$'

Note that, if it is just the implied . and .. that you want to remove, you can also use ls -AR. From man ls:

  -a, --all
         do not ignore entries starting with .

  -A, --almost-all
         do not list implied . and ..

Answer 2

Can’t test this right now, but fairly certain this will work. Wasn’t clear if you wanted to list the non-directory files in the working dir, so skipped my those.

ls -d */* */.??*