Subject: Re: bug#13635: Strange ls bug (Combination of -a and --color)

From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:40:53 -0800

My guess is that 'csf' is readable but not searchable.
That would explain your symptoms:

$ ls -ld csf
dr--------. 2 eggert eggert 4096 Feb  6 15:31 csf
$ ls -ld csf/.
ls: cannot access csf/.: Permission denied
$ ls --color=always -a csf
ls: cannot access csf/.: Permission denied
ls: cannot access csf/..: Permission denied
.  ..

In the last example, 'ls' needs to stat csf/. and csf/..
to see whether their permissions are weird (since directories
with weird permissions are given different colors), but
it cannot do so since csf lacks search permission.

One possible fix would be to alter 'ls' so that, if 'ls' cannot
find out about a file, it gives the file an even weirder
color.  That might be more useful than the current behavior.
Is this something you could write?