Paul Eggert said: > Yes. --ignore is about what 'ls' finds in directories, not about command-line arguments.   So my command should work, IMO: ls --hide "*.pub" id_ed*     id_ed* would expand to all files starting with id_ed ls will stat them and get their name --hide should hide those matching the pattern.ls should display the expected result of all id_ed private key files. I don't understand why --hide is depending on whether FILEs were provided or not to the command. This is the opposite of what Paul stated. Best regards    Mathias M