Viewing extended file properties via command line in Linux

Question

In Windows it is possible to open explorer and add columns to view additional information about a file. For example in the image below, I added the columns for Company, Copyright and Description:

I need to know if there is a way to obtain this information via command line on a system running linux (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS). I can use strings and grep for the company name and see that, but, it assumes I already know the company name. I can't just grep for "Company" and have it return the company name on the same or next line.

Solution

You can't get all the information with ls.

You need several commands:

• Name: ls

• Owner: ls -ld <filename> | cut -f3 -d' '

  For example: root

• Date modified: ls -ld <filename> | awk '{print $6" "$7}'

  For example: 2012-03-02 06:56

  (Use stat <filename> for date accessed and changed.)

• Type: file <filename>

  For example: /lib/libiw.so.30: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386 (...)

• Size: ls -hld <filename> | cut -f5 -d' '

  For example: 34K

• Tags: N/A

• Company: apt-cache show $(dpkg -S <filename> | cut -f1 -d:) | grep Origin

  For example: Origin: Ubuntu

  (On .rpm-based systems this information can be found in rpm -q -i -f <filename>)

• Copyright: cat /usr/share/doc/$(dpkg -S <filename> | cut -f1 -d:)/copyright 2>/dev/null || echo 'No copyright information'

  For example: (...) Copyright: Commercial (...)

  (On .rpm-based systems this information can be found in rpm -q -i -f <filename>)

• Description: apt-cache show $(dpkg -S <filename> | cut -f1 -d:) | fgrep 'Description' | fgrep -v Description-md5

  For example: Description-en: Filesystem in Userspace (library)

  (On .rpm-based systems this information can be found in rpm -q -i -f <filename>)

• Long description: apt-cache show $(dpkg -S <filename> | cut -f1 -d:) | egrep -v '^[^ ]'

  For example: GNU findutils provides utilities to find files meeting specified criteria and perform various actions on the files which are found. This package contains 'find' and 'xargs'; however, 'locate' has been split off into a separate package.

  (On .rpm-based systems this information can be found in rpm -q -i -f <filename>)

This is a very quick and dirty shell function for Ubuntu that provides much of the information above:

function lsw { filename=$1; ( echo "XXNameXXOwnerXXDate ModifiedXXTypeXXSizeXXCompanyXXDescription"; ( echo  XX$filename; echo -n XX; ls -dl $filename | cut -f3 -d' '; echo -n XX; ls -dl $filename | awk '{print $6" "$7}'; echo -n XX; file $filename | cut -f2 -d: | cut -f1 -d,; echo -n XX; ls -hld $filename| cut -f5 -d' '; echo -n XX; apt-cache show $(dpkg -S $filename 2>/dev/null| cut -f1 -d:) 2>/dev/null| egrep 'Origin:|Section:' | tail -n 1 | cut -f2 -d:; echo -n XX; apt-cache show $(dpkg -S $filename 2>/dev/null| cut -f1 -d:) 2>/dev/null| fgrep 'Description' | fgrep -v Description-md5 | cut -f2 -d:) | tr '\n' ' '; echo ) | column -t -s XX; }

Some examples:

$ lsw /home/jaume
Name          Owner   Date Modified      Type         Size   Company  Description
/home/jaume   jaume   2013-02-19 22:01    directory   4.0K 

$ lsw /opt/ibm/notes/notes
Name                   Owner  Date Modified      Type                         Size  Company  Description
/opt/ibm/notes/notes   root   2012-12-08 08:47    ELF 32-bit LSB executable   47K    IBM      IBM Notes 

$ lsw /lib/libfuse.so.2
Name                Owner  Date Modified      Type                                   Size  Company   Description
/lib/libfuse.so.2   root   2012-03-02 16:33    symbolic link to `libfuse.so.2.8.6'   16     Ubuntu    Filesystem in Userspace (library) 

Comments

[Eddy_Em]

Try to run nm file. As for license/copyright and description - you can know it from your package manager (I don't know how to do it in ubuntu).

[jdevaney]

Tried that, returned nm: <filename>: no symbols on multiple files that I can see in windows that have properties I am looking for as described above.

[Eddy_Em]

Clarify: you want to watch properties of binary & library files in Ubuntu or in windows?

[jdevaney]

I need to be able to see them on Linux (in this instance, my server is running Ubuntu). I can see the properties on a Windows system, this is how I am trying to find them on Linux. I know what they are in Windows, I am just trying to find a way to see the same information in Linux.

[Eddy_Em]

run strings file. (but I think, you're playing the fool)

[jdevaney]

using strings, I can see the data I want. The problem with this is that if I hadn't known what the company name was before running strings, I might not know that information just looking at the output of strings. In several files I looked at the information appeared to be there, and in some, it wasn't. Unfortunately, I don't think I can rely on strings alone to always have the information I need/want.