Question

When I do “ls” it lists files and folders with a color coding. I can’t find the translation of this coding anywhere. I know some are files and some are directories, but I’ve got three colors here.

Anyone know where the translation is? There are many posts saying how to activate coding, but now where to see the definitions.

Answer 1

Look at man ls and search for the string LSCOLORS if you want to learn how to change them, but here’s the basics (scroll within code block below to view full excerpt):

 LSCOLORS        The value of this variable describes what color to use
                 for which attribute when colors are enabled with
                 CLICOLOR.  This string is a concatenation of pairs of the
                 format fb, where f is the foreground color and b is the
                 background color.

                 The color designators are as follows:

                       a     black
                       b     red
                       c     green
                       d     brown
                       e     blue
                       f     magenta
                       g     cyan
                       h     light grey
                       A     bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
                       B     bold red
                       C     bold green
                       D     bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
                       E     bold blue
                       F     bold magenta
                       G     bold cyan
                       H     bold light grey; looks like bright white
                       x     default foreground or background

                 Note that the above are standard ANSI colors.  The actual
                 display may differ depending on the color capabilities of
                 the terminal in use.

                 The order of the attributes are as follows:

                       1.   directory
                       2.   symbolic link
                       3.   socket
                       4.   pipe
                       5.   executable
                       6.   block special
                       7.   character special
                       8.   executable with setuid bit set
                       9.   executable with setgid bit set
                       10.  directory writable to others, with sticky bit
                       11.  directory writable to others, without sticky
                            bit

                 The default is "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", i.e. blue fore-
                 ground and default background for regular directories,
                 black foreground and red background for setuid executa-
                 bles, etc.

So, the default is:

directories: blue on default background
symlink: magenta on default background
socket: green on default background
pipe: brown on default background

and so on