Options can be used to alter the behavior of a command. In the previous blog, the ls command was used to list the contents of a directory. In the following example, the -l option is provided to the ls command, which results in a "long display" output, meaning the output gives more information about each of the files listed:
Note: In the command above,
-l is a lowercase letter "L".Often the character is chosen to be mnemonic for its purpose, like choosing the letter l for long or r for reverse. By default, the ls command prints the results in alphabetical order, so adding the -r option will print the results in reverse alphabetical order.
Multiple options can be used at once, either given as separate options as in -l -r or combined like -lr. The output of all of these examples would be the same:
As explained above,
-l gives a long listing format while -r reverses the listing. The result of using both options is a long listing given in reverse order:
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It is possible to alter the behavior of this command using options. See what happens when the
-v (verbose) option is added:
By combining multiple
-v options, we can get a variety of responses:
Remember multiple options can be denoted separately or combined:
Keep adding
-v options to see how many unique responses you can get!