Using the ls -l with a pipe how can i get it to display the 8th file in the list without the file details

Question

I am looking to display the 8th file name in a directory using ls -l and pipe for example ls -l | wc -1 would give me the count but what i want to have returned is the 8th file name in the directory list whatever it is. i have looked at grep and wildcards but still do not see which command would give me the result i am looking for.

Thanks

Have a read : http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs – mveroone Sep 03 '14 at 12:10 — mveroone, Sep 03 '14 at 12:10

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered May 24 '12 at 19:42

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try

ls -l | head -n 9 | tail -n 1

if you want only name you can use cut at the end

ls -l | head -n 9 | tail -n 1 | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f8

tr is to replace multiply spaces and tabs by one space

answered May 24 '12 at 19:42

jcubic

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+1 for the `tr -s ' ' | cut` trick, I never thought of that for some reason - i typically use (g)awk when extracting columns. – Rich Homolka May 24 '12 at 20:30
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If the filename contains multiple spaces in sequence, the returned file name will be wrong by having its spaces collapsed. And for that matter, even if the filename just contains a single space, it will not be returned in full since only field 8 is returned, which is the file name *up to its first space*. Also, you don't need `ls -l` as pointed out if you just want the filename, but you also don't even need `ls -1`; just `ls` will do (see http://superuser.com/q/424246/49184). – Daniel Andersson May 25 '12 at 07:10
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This also gives the wrong output on my system, since it is dependent on the lcoale for the date format. `-f9` is needed here (as also touched upon in cokedude's answer), but as I said, file names with spaces will be incorrect. `-f9-` will return fields 9 *and onwards* and be better, but then again, file names with multiple spaces in sequence will still be wrong. – Daniel Andersson May 25 '12 at 07:15

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 24 '12 at 20:26

Another way is like this.

ls -l | sed -n '9p'

If you only want the file or directory name then use this.

ls -l | sed -n '9p' | awk '{print $9}'

jcubic are you sure this is what you wanted?

ls -l | head -n 9 | tail -n 1 | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f8

I would think he would want the file or directory name like this.

ls -l | head -n 9 | tail -n 1 | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f9

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:16

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ls | awk 'NR==8'

You don't need ls -l to get 1-column output, or even ls -1 if you are throwing output to a pipe (see e.g. What is the magic separator between filenames in ls output?).
NR==8 will only return true for line 8, and then awk default action is to print it.

edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:16

Community

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answered May 25 '12 at 07:07

Daniel Andersson

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 03 '14 at 12:13

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Just don't use -l

ls | head -8 | tail -1

You get file name, ls orders files same as ls -l.

answered Sep 03 '14 at 12:13

Pawel Wisniewski

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Using the ls -l with a pipe how can i get it to display the 8th file in the list without the file details

4 Answers4