I've done an ls -l inside a directory, and my files are displaying like this :
james@nevada:~/development/tools/android-sdk-linux_86/tools$ ll
total 9512
drwxr-xr-x 3 james james 4096 2010-05-07 19:48 ./
drwxr-xr-x 6 james james 4096 2010-08-21 20:43 ../
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 341773 2010-05-07 19:47 adb*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 3636 2010-05-07 19:47 android*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 2382 2010-05-07 19:47 apkbuilder*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 3265 2010-05-07 19:47 ddms*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 89032 2010-05-07 19:47 dmtracedump*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 1940 2010-05-07 19:47 draw9patch*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 6886136 2010-05-07 19:47 emulator*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 478199 2010-05-07 19:47 etc1tool*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 1987 2010-05-07 19:47 hierarchyviewer*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 23044 2010-05-07 19:47 hprof-conv*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 1939 2010-05-07 19:47 layoutopt*
drwxr-xr-x 4 james james 4096 2010-05-07 19:48 lib/
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 16550 2010-05-07 19:47 mksdcard*
-rw-r--r-- 1 james james 205851 2010-05-07 19:48 NOTICE.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 james james 33 2010-05-07 19:47 source.properties
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 1447936 2010-05-07 19:47 sqlite3*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 3044 2010-05-07 19:47 traceview*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 james james 187965 2010-05-07 19:47 zipalign*What does that asterisk mean?
I'm also unable to run a particular file, as follows:
james@nevada:~/development/tools/android-sdk-linux_86/tools$ ./emulator
bash: ./emulator: No such file or directoryEDIT : I'm trying to get Eclipse to use emulator, but it keeps complaining the files does not exist, yet it is here?
5 Answers
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams has already explained about the *:
It means that the file is executable. A classifier is shown when -F is passed to ls via the command line or otherwise.
As for the executable-looking emulator that you can't actually execute, this can happen when the dynamic loader requested by emulator doesn't exist. You can check what kind of file emulator is with the command file emulator, and check what dynamic loader and libraries it needs with ldd emulator (any line showing “not found” is something you need to install).
Given the name of the directory and the size of the file, emulator is probably a Linux x86 binary. I suspect you have an amd64 system. If so, you need to install a runtime environment for 32-bit applications; on Ubuntu, you need the ia32-libs package (and perhaps also ia32-libs-gtk).
You could also get this error message for a script whose interpreter as indicated in the #! line doesn't exist.
It means that the file is executable. A classifier is shown when -F is passed to ls via the command line or otherwise.
From info ls:
`-F'
`--classify'
`--indicator-style=classify' Append a character to each file name indicating the file type. Also, for regular files that are executable, append `*'. The file type indicators are `/' for directories, `@' for symbolic links, `|' for FIFOs, `=' for sockets, `>' for doors, and nothing for regular files.Ubuntu (12.04, and probably other versions as well) includes the following setting by default:
alias ll='ls -alF'And as others have explained, -F is responsible for the asterisk.
IPython automatically uses the F flag under the hood (by default), so just entering ls will produce the effect you're seeing there.
Edit: by the way, you are stating you're running ls -l, running ll may not be the same at all.
As several others have mentioned, the -F option to ls will flag executables with the asterisk. You don't have a -F in your command line, but it is likely that ls has been aliased. You can check for aliases in your shell of choice (in bash, use the built-in command alias to list the aliases), or escape the ls command with a backslash to disable aliasing.
