'Display only files and folders that are symbolic links in tcsh or bash

Basically I want do the following:

ls -l[+someflags]

(or by some other means) that will only display files that are symbolic links

so the output would look

-rw-r--r--  1 username grp   size date-time    filename -> somedir
-rw-r--r--  1 username grp   size date-time    filename2 -> somsdfsdf

etc.

For example,

to show only directories I have an alias:

alias  lsd  'ls -l | grep ^d'

I wonder how to display only hidden files or only hidden directories?

I have the following solution, however it doesn't display the output in color :(

ls -ltra | grep '\->'
linuxshellcshtcsh


Solution 1:[1]

Find all the symbolic links in a directory:

ls -l `find /usr/bin -maxdepth 1 -type l -print`

For the listing of hidden files:

ls -ald .*

Solution 2:[2]

For only "hidden" folders - dot folders, try:

ls -l .**

Yes, the two asterisks are necessary, otherwise you'll also get . and .. in the results.

For symlinks, well, try the symlinks program:

symlinks -v .

(shows all symlinks under current directory)

Solution 3:[3]

ls -l | grep lrw

shows only symlinks (files and directories). Not sure how to get them colorful, though.

ls -lad .*

shows only hidden files/directories

ls -l | grep drw

shows directories only.

Solution 4:[4]

To display JUST the symlinks and what they link to:

find -P . -type l -exec echo -n "{} -> " \; -exec readlink {} \;

To limit to JUST THIS DIR

find -P .  -maxdepth 1 -type l -exec echo -n "{} -> " \; -exec readlink {} \;

Example output (after ln -s /usr/bin moo):

./moo -> /usr/bin

Solution 5:[5]

You were almost there with your grep solution; let's focus on getting you COLOR again.

Try this:

ls --color=always -ltra | grep '->'

Solution 6:[6]

Improving a little on the accepted answer given by @ChristopheD (coudnt comment on the accepted answer since I dont have enough reputation)

I use an alias

findsymlinks <path> <depth>

where the alias is 

alias findsymlinks "find \!:1 -maxdepth \!:2 -type l -print | xargs ls -l --color=auto"

Solution 7:[7]

Try file type flag and get rid of the appending @

ls -F /home/usr/foo | grep "@" | sed 's/@//'

Solution 8:[8]

For (t)csh:

ls --color=always -ltra | grep '\->'

(This is simply pbr's answer but with the hyphen escaped.)

Mac OSX

On OSX, ls works differently, so add this to your ~/.cshrc file:

setenv CLICOLOR_FORCE 1   # (equivalent of Linux --color=always)

And then call:

ls -G -ltra | grep '\->'  # (-G is equivalent of ls --color)

Solution 9:[9]

For bash:
This provides a nice output.

sl=`find -L /path/to/target -xtype l`; for links in $sl; do ls --color=always -ltra $links; done | sed 's/^/    /'

Solution 10:[10]

Displays colorful symbolic links.

echo > linklist.found && $(for i in find /path/to/dir/ -type l; do echo ls -d --color=always $i echo " -> " $(ls -d --color=always readlink -f $i) >> linklist.found; echo >> linklist.found; done;) && cat linklist.found | more

This works good for me however if you will be searching / the filesystem root you will need to omit the proc directory

Solution 11:[11]

Usage: foo $path

Uses current path if none specified.

#!/bin/bash

case "$1" in

    -r)
    find $2 -type l -print | while IFS= read line ; do ls -l --color=always "$line"; done
    ;;

    --help)
    echo 'Usage: foo [-r] [$PATH]'
    echo    
    echo '-r  Recursive'
    ;;


    *)
    ls --color=always -ltra $1 | grep '\->'
esac

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