eza’s options are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike ls’s.

• -1, --oneline: display one entry per line
• -G, --grid: display entries as a grid (default)
• -l, --long: display extended details and attributes
• -R, --recurse: recurse into directories
• -T, --tree: recurse into directories as a tree
• -x, --across: sort the grid across, rather than downwards
• -F, --classify: display type indicator by file names
• --colo[u]r=(when): when to use terminal colours (always, auto, never)
• --colo[u]r-scale: highlight levels of file sizes distinctly
• --icons=(when): when to display icons (always, auto, never)
• --hyperlink: display entries as hyperlinks
• -w, --width=(columns): set screen width in columns

• -a, --all: show hidden and 'dot' files
• -d, --list-dirs: list directories like regular files
• -L, --level=(depth): limit the depth of recursion
• -r, --reverse: reverse the sort order
• -s, --sort=(field): which field to sort by
• --group-directories-first: list directories before other files
• -D, --only-dirs: list only directories
• -f, --only-files: list only files
• --git-ignore: ignore files mentioned in .gitignore
• -I, --ignore-glob=(globs): glob patterns (pipe-separated) of files to ignore

Pass the --all option twice to also show the . and .. directories.

These options are available when running with --long (-l):

• -b, --binary: list file sizes with binary prefixes
• -B, --bytes: list file sizes in bytes, without any prefixes
• -g, --group: list each file’s group
• -h, --header: add a header row to each column
• -H, --links: list each file’s number of hard links
• -i, --inode: list each file’s inode number
• -m, --modified: use the modified timestamp field
• -M, --mounts: Show mount details (Linux and MacOS only).
• -S, --blocksize: show size of allocated file system blocks
• -t, --time=(field): which timestamp field to use
• -u, --accessed: use the accessed timestamp field
• -U, --created: use the created timestamp field
• -X, --dereference: dereference symlinks for file information
• -Z, --context: list each file’s security context
• -@, --extended: list each file’s extended attributes and sizes
• --changed: use the changed timestamp field
• --git: list each file’s Git status, if tracked or ignored
• --git-repos: list each directory’s Git status, if tracked
• --git-repos-no-status: list whether a directory is a Git repository, but not its status (faster)
• --no-git: suppress Git status (always overrides --git, --git-repos, --git-repos-no-status)
• --time-style: how to format timestamps. valid timestamp styles are ‘default’, ‘iso’, ‘long-iso’, ‘full-iso’, ‘relative', or you can use a custom style with ' ' as prefix. (Ex: " %Y/%m/%d, %H:%M" => "2023/9/30, 12:00"). more about format syntax.
• --total-size: show recursive directory size
• --no-permissions: suppress the permissions field
• -o, --octal-permissions: list each file's permission in octal format
• --no-filesize: suppress the filesize field
• --no-user: suppress the user field
• --no-time: suppress the time field

Some of the options accept parameters:

• Valid --colo[u]r options are always, automatic (or auto for short), and never.
• Valid sort fields are accessed, changed, created, extension, Extension, inode, modified, name, Name, size, type, and none. Fields starting with a capital letter sort uppercase before lowercase. The modified field has the aliases date, time, and newest, while its reverse has the aliases age and oldest.
• Valid time fields are modified, changed, accessed, and created.
• Valid time styles are default, iso, long-iso, full-iso, and relative.

eza is written in Rust. You will need rustc version 1.56.1 or higher. The recommended way to install Rust for development is from the official download page, using rustup.

Once Rust is installed, you can compile eza with Cargo:

cargo build
cargo test

• The just command runner can be used to run some helpful development commands, in a manner similar to make. Run just --list to get an overview of what’s available.

• If you are compiling a copy for yourself, be sure to run cargo build --release or just build-release to benefit from release-mode optimisations. Copy the resulting binary, which will be in the target/release directory, into a folder in your $PATH. /usr/local/bin is usually a good choice.

• To compile and install the manual pages, you will need pandoc. The just man command will compile the Markdown into manual pages, which it will place in the target/man directory. To use them, copy them into a directory that man will read. /usr/local/share/man is usually a good choice.

• eza depends on libgit2 for certain features. If you’re unable to compile libgit2, you can opt out of Git support by running cargo build --no-default-features.

• If you intend to compile for musl, you will need to use the flag vendored-openssl if you want to get the Git feature working. The full command is cargo build --release --target=x86_64-unknown-linux-musl --features vendored-openssl,git.

If you have a working Nix installation with flake support, you can use nix to manage your dev environment.

nix develop

The Nix Flake has a few features:

• Run nix flake check to run treefmt on the repo.
• Run nix build and manually test ./results/bin/eza -- <arguments> for easy debugging.
• Run nix build .#test to run cargo test via the flake.
• Run nix build .#clippy to lint with clippy (still work in progress).