what does ls / > mean?

Question

I found

ls / > output.txt

creates output.txt which contains names of folders inside rootfs. But I can't understand what does ls / > exactly mean. I know command ls is used to list all files in the location but what does ls / > do? I did man ls to read definition of ls / > but I couldn't find that there.

@user535733 ok so ls / prints out files inside root linux folder and the outputs will be redirected to output.txt . is it right? — game lover, Jan 28 '22 at 18:49
Beside the point, but for "roofts", you mean "rootfs", right? But actually, you mean "the root of the filesystem", right? cause rootfs gets mounted over during startup (IIRC) — wjandrea, Jan 28 '22 at 18:49
Related: What's is the difference between ">" and ">>" in shell command? — wjandrea, Jan 28 '22 at 18:52

wjandrea · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-29T22:11:32.940

8

/ is the root directory, which contains directories like home and root as well as files like swapfile if you have it set up.

> sends (redirects) the output of a command to a file, in this case, output.txt.

So ls / > output.txt means "list the contents of the root directory and send the output to output.txt."

edited Jan 29 '22 at 22:11

answered Jan 28 '22 at 18:55

wjandrea

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what does ls / > mean?

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