README.md

Portfolio Assignment 05 – System-oriented Programming

1. Project Overview

This project is a simplified implementation of the Linux ls command, capable of listing, filtering, and sorting files and directories.

Features:

• -R (Recursive listing)
• -a / -A (Show/hide hidden files)
• -l (Detailed output)
• --sort=name|size|time (Sorting options)
• --reverse (Reverse sorting order)
• --name=PATTERN (Filter by name with wildcards)
• --type=f|d (Filter by file or directory)

The program is written in C and ensures thread-safe execution using mutex locks within its dynamic data structure.

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2. Project Structure

📂 project_root
 ├── 📂 src            # Contains all source and header files
 │   ├── main.c / main.h
 │   ├── display.c / display.h
 │   ├── dataStructures.c / dataStructures.h
 │   ├── options.c / options.h
 │   ├── thread_utils.c / thread_utils.h
 │   ├── filterUtils.c / filterUtils.h
 │   ├── generic_list.c / generic_list.h
 │   ├── test.c / test.h
 │   Makefile         # Describes the build process 
 ├── README.md        # This file

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3. Build and Installation

This project uses GCC and a Makefile for compilation.

Requirements

• Linux with GCC
• Make (for build automation)

Build Instructions

1. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd project_root

2. Compile the program:

   make 

   This generates the executable MyLS in the build folder (same as make all).
3. Clean up compiled files:

   make clean

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4. Usage

Run the program with different options:

./MyLS [OPTIONS] [DIRECTORY]

Examples:

• List files: ./myls
• Recursive listing: ./myls -R
• Show hidden files: ./myls -a
• Sort by size: ./myls --sort=size --reverse
• Filter by *.txt files: ./myls --name=*.txt
• Show only directories: ./myls --type=d