Being a perl forum and all here is a short ls type script that you can configure to your hearts content. You can get all sorts of info out of the file test operators if you want to generate a custom listing like from ls -Cal, see perlman:perlop Script takes one argument [dir to list] or defaults to the cwd. We use ANSI escapes to colour the text. The Term::ANSIColor module exports some constants so we just say what color we want in the print.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Term::ANSIColor qw(:constants);
$Term::ANSIColor::AUTORESET = 1;

my $dir = shift @ARGV || '.';

opendir DIR, $dir or die "Can't open dir $!\n";
while (my $file = readdir DIR) {
    if ( -d "$dir/$file" ) {                         # directory
        print BLUE "$file\n";
    } elsif ( -l "$dir/$file" ) {                    # symbolic link
        print CYAN "$file\n";
    } elsif ( $file =~ m/\.(?:pl|pm|cgi)$/ ) {       # looks Perly
        print GREEN "$file\n";
    } elsif ( -x "$dir/$file" ) {                    # is executable
        print YELLOW "$file\n";
    } elsif (-f "$dir/$file" and -T "$dir/$file" ) { # is a Text file
        print RED "$file\n";    
    } else {                                         # none of the abo
+ve!
        print "$file\n";
    }
}

# Colors available:
# BLACK WHITE RED GREEN YELLOW BLUE MAGENTA CYAN
[download]

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

how about for a unix system (solaris). does the same script works?

It works under Linux which is unix. I have tested it. Term::ANSIColor is said to work under Solaris, it is unix, so I expect so. Have you considered actually testing it? I often find this an effective approach to see if something will work ;-)

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

One tip. If you alias this, use the --color=auto option. That way scripts will get monochrome listings and color will only appear in a tty.

After Compline,
Zaxo

export LS_COLORS=*.txt:01;32:*.pl:01;35:
[download]

broquaint