DIRCOLORS

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: February 2026
Index Return to Main Contents

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NAME

dircolors - color setup for ls  

SYNOPSIS

dircolors [,OPTION/]... [,FILE/]  

DESCRIPTION

Output commands to set the LS_COLORS environment variable.  

Determine format of output:

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#dircolor-b'-b, --sh, --bourne-shellX'tty: link'

output Bourne shell code to set LS_COLORS

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#dircolor-c'-c, --csh, --c-shellX'tty: link'

output C shell code to set LS_COLORS

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#dircolor-p'-p, --print-databaseX'tty: link'

output defaults

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/coreutils.html#dircolor-prin-l-colors'--print-ls-colorsX'tty: link'

output fully escaped colors for display

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/dircolors#dircolor-help'--helpX'tty: link'

display this help and exit

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/dircolors#dircolor-version'--versionX'tty: link'

output version information and exit

If FILE is specified, read it to determine which colors to use for which file types and extensions. Otherwise, a precompiled database is used. For details on the format of these files, run 'dircolors --print-database'.  

AUTHOR

Written by H. Peter Anvin.  

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org

Report Gentoo bugs to: https://bugs.gentoo.org/
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>  

SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/dircolors>
or available locally via: info aq(coreutils) dircolors invocationaq

Packaged by Gentoo (9.10 (p0))
Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

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Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Determine format of output:

AUTHOR

REPORTING BUGS

SEE ALSO