On Sat, Feb 08, 2003 at 06:16:55PM -0500, Gan Uesli Starling wrote:
> I haven't used the '-d' option for 'ls' in a while, but on both of my 
> NetBSD 1.6 boxes all I get is the 'dot directory' listed by "ls -d" even 
> when there are a whole bunch of directories just wanting to be listed.
> 
> Per 'man ls' I read the following...
> 
>  -d      Directories are listed as plain files (not searched 
> recursively) and symbolic links in the argument list are not indirected 
>             through.
> 
> ...and it says "Directories are listed" which is plural, meaning more 
> than just the dot directory. I am supposing...is this a bug?

This is not a bug.

The current working directory is the default argument (not argument, but
I can't really think of a more appropriate word at the moment). -d does
not recursively list things, so . is all that ls -d is supposed to look
at. It's not useful for finding directories. You can use find for that.
It _is_ useful when you want to look at the contents of some populated
directory. For instance:

soren@bob:/usr/pkgsrc$ ls chat/*icq*
chat/centericq:
CVS/      DESCR     Makefile  PLIST     distinfo

chat/icqlib:
CVS/      DESCR     Makefile  PLIST     distinfo

chat/kicq:
CVS/      DESCR     Makefile  PLIST     distinfo  patches/

chat/micq:
CVS/      DESCR     Makefile  PLIST     distinfo  patches/

chat/vicq:
CVS/      DESCR     Makefile  PLIST     distinfo  patches/

But, we can simplify that output with -d:

soren@bob:/usr/pkgsrc$ ls -d chat/*icq*
chat/centericq/   chat/icqlib/      chat/kicq/        chat/micq/        chat/vicq/

-- 
Soren Jacobsen