'macOS Terminal: `ls` sorts results with capitalised names first

How can I fix this default sorting behaviour for ls in the macOS Terminal? I want the results to be case-insensitive and alphabetised.

Here is an example to illustrate the current and desired behaviours when running ls in a directory with the files/directories: Apple_, apple, Basket_, basket

Current behaviour:

Apple_

Basket_

apple

basket

Desired behaviour:

Apple_

apple

Basket_

basket

Does anyone know how to achieve this?

macosshellunixterminal


Solution 1:[1]

This no longer works

So @Yoric was very close, but the content of his function was a bit wrong: it would indeed sort the results alphabetically, but when using the `-la' flag, it would mess up the order of the "dot" files/directories (those beginning with a dot).

I found the correct solution by adapting the one in the following Stack Overflow post: Making the "ls" command sort "a" before "B" (vs a->b->A->B)

Steps:

  1. Open/create your shell profile file in your home directory (~/). (This file is automatically run every time you launch the shell). This would be:
  • .bash_profile if not using a configuration framework
  • .zshrc if using zsh
  1. Add the following code
ls_sort() {
  LC_COLLATE=en_US.utf8 ls "$@"
}

alias ls='ls_sort'
  1. Restart your Terminal

Thank you @Yoric for helping me to get to this solution!

Solution 2:[2]

You can sort like this:

$ mkdir testdir && cd testdir
$ touch apple basket Apple_ Basket_
$ ls | LC_COLLATE=C sort --ignore-case

The output (not exactly the expected result, actually):

Apple
apple_
basket
Basket_

UPDATE

To make it the default behavior of ls, you can add this piece of code into the file ~/.bash_profile (it will be effective after opening a new terminal window):

ls_sort() {
  ls $1 | LC_COLLATE=C sort --ignore-case
}
alias ls='ls_sort'

You can actually name the alias lss instead of ls in the last line above, so you don't lose the original behavior of ls.

Solution 3:[3]

The following works for me:

ls | sort -f

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1
Solution 2
Solution 3 Paul Dulaney

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