Question

The output of ls dir* is ___

(a) all files in the current directory

(b) all files in the directory having a filename starting with dir

(c) no filename is displayed

(d) erroneous

I had been asked this question in an internship interview.

My question is from Listing Directory Contents: Is Command in chapter The File System of Unix

Answer 1

Right option is (b) all files in the directory having a filename starting with dir

For explanation I would say: The above command displays those files in the directory, the names of which will be starting with a prefix ‘dir’. Here * is a meta-character which is used for pattern matching.