Question

What is the difference between ls /etc and ls -R /etc ?

Answer 1

The ls command is a basic command in the UNIX operating system which is used to list or display the files or directories in the current working directory.

$ ls /etc

In the above command, the directory /etc is passed as an argument to the ls command and it will display the list of files in etc directory.

$ ls -R /etc

In the above command, -R is an option of the ls command which lists all files recursively, descending down the directory tree from the given path.