exa is a modern replacement for the file-listing command-line program ls which is used on operating systems like Linux, UNIX, and macOS.exa gives more features and uses colors to differentiate the files and metadata.
Features of exa
- All the colors: Different types of files and data will be colored differently, and the user and group columns will be highlighted for the current user.
- All the information: exa displays a file’s extended attributes, as well as standard file system information such as the inode, the number of blocks, and a file’s various dates and times.
- It is fast: exa queries files in parallel, giving you performance on par with ls.
- Tree view: exa gives a standard tree tool, and it shows files’ information alongside the hierarchy.
- Git support: View the staged and upstaged status of every file, right there in the standard view. Also, it works in a tree view for a high-level overview of your repository.
Now let’s see how to install the exa on different systems.
Installation of exa
Use the following command according to the system to install exa:
For macOS :
brew install exa
For Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt install exa
For Fedora:
sudo dnf install exa
For Arch Linux:
sudo pacman -S exa
Alternatively, if you already have a Rust environment set up, you can use the cargo install command:
cargo install exa
Now we have installed exa. Now let’s see how to use exa. To use exa, just use exa command as follows:
exa
Now let’s explore the options provided by exa.
Options by exa
List one entry per line
When we use -1 or -oneline option, exa displays one entry per line.
exa -1
List Files With Meta Data
When we use -l or –long : option, exa displays extended details and attributes of files.
exa -l
List Content Of Directory In Tree-Like Format
When we use -T or –tree option,exa recurse into directories as a tree.
exa -T
Display icons of files
To show icons of the file, use –icons option:
exa --icons
Display hidden dot files
To show all the hidden and ‘dot’ files use -a or -all option
exa -a
Display directories
To show only directories use -D options
exa -D
To find out more about exa, you can read the man page of exa and visit to GitHub page of exa.
man exa