The little word after a dash is called a flag (or an option): an extra instruction that changes how a command behaves. Flags always come after the command name.
The -l flag means "long": one item per line, with extra details. Read each line from the right and it makes sense: the name, when it last changed, its size in bytes, and who owns it.
The very first character is the giveaway. d means directory (a folder); - means an ordinary file. So the two 4096-byte entries with a d are your folders, and pets.txt really is 15 bytes long: cat, dog and rabbit, one per line.
Try ls -a too. Any name beginning with a dot is hidden from a normal ls, and that is the whole trick: there is no secret setting, a dot at the front is all it takes. Programs use dot-names for their settings files so they do not clutter your folder up.
ls -lLong listing: permissions, size, date, name.ls -aAll: includes the hidden dot-files.ls -laBoth at once; flags can be joined together.- ○Get the long listing with ls -l
- ○Reveal the hidden files with ls -a
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