Views

A view changes how a listing is drawn. It doesn't change what's selected, so you can combine any view below with the filters and sorting.

• Defaultlla
• Longlla -l
• Treella -t
• Tablella -T
• Gridlla -g
• Gitlla -G
• Timelinella --timeline
• Size maplla -S
• Recursivella -R
• Fuzzylla -F

To stop passing a flag every time, set your usual view with default_format.

Default view

Names only, one per line. This is the view to use for a quick look.

lla
lla src

Long view

Permissions, size, modification date, owner and group, plus any metadata you ask for. Use it when the details of each file matter.

lla -l
lla -l --hide-group --relative-dates
lla -l --date-format "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"
lla -l --permission-format octal

These flags add more metadata:

Symlinks show their target after the name. --no-symlink-target hides it, and -X, --dereference reports the target's metadata instead of the link's.

--permission-format accepts symbolic, octal, binary, verbose or compact.

Choose the columns

Set the columns and their order in your config:

[formatters.long]
hide_group = true
relative_dates = true
date_format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"
columns = ["permissions", "size", "modified", "name", "field:git_status"]

The built-in keys are permissions, inode, links, size, allocated, modified, created, accessed, user, group, xattrs, context, mount, name, path and plugins. Use field:<name> for a field added by a plugin.

Tree view

The directory hierarchy, to the depth you choose. The default depth is 3, and default_depth in your config changes it.

lla -t
lla -t -d 2 docs

Table view

The long view's data in aligned, bordered columns. It's easier to scan down a single column, which helps when you're comparing files.

lla -T

It takes the same column keys as the long view:

[formatters.table]
columns = ["permissions", "size", "modified", "name"]

Grid view

Names in as many columns as your terminal fits. Use it for directories with many short names.

lla -g
lla -g --grid-ignore

--grid-ignore ignores the terminal width, so lines can run off the screen.

Git view

Each entry's Git status with its last commit, subject, age and author. A header shows the branch, its upstream, and how many files are staged or changed. Run it inside a repository. For a subdirectory, include the leading ./, because lla -G src reports Not a git repository in lla 0.6.6.

lla -G
lla -G ./src

Timeline view

Entries grouped by when they last changed: today, yesterday, last week, last month and older. Use it to find what you were working on.

lla --timeline

Size map view

Bars that compare entries by size, each with its share of the total. Add --include-dirs to count directories as well, which walks them recursively.

lla -S
lla -S --include-dirs

Recursive view

Every nested directory, as a flat listing grouped by directory. -d limits the depth. To cap very large walks, set max_entries.

lla -R
lla -R -d 2
lla -R -l

Archives

lla reads .zip, .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz files as if they were directories, without extracting them. Views, filters and machine output all work.

lla backup.tar.gz -t
lla project.zip -l -f ".rs"
lla bundle.tgz --json

Single files

Pass a file to see only that entry, in any view.

lla Cargo.toml -l
lla src/main.rs --json

Compare files and directories

lla diff compares two paths, or one path against a Git reference.

lla diff src ../backup/src
lla diff src --git
lla diff src --git --git-ref HEAD~1
lla diff Cargo.lock ../backup/Cargo.lock
lla diff Cargo.lock --git --git-ref HEAD~1

--git compares against HEAD unless you set --git-ref.

For directories, you get each entry's status and size change.

For files, you get the size and line-count changes followed by a unified diff. Binary files are detected and their content isn't printed.

Options for any view