How to create ls in windows command prompt?

Question

I want to use ls in windows command prompt and make it run the dir command.

How can I do that?

Answer 1

+1 on the post above suggesting to install git for windows and add the directory bin to your path variables.

Another way I got touch, ls, and a lot of other UNIX commands working in cmd.exe on my Windows 8 and Windows 7 machines.

Go to the following site to install Cygwin

https://www.cygwin.com/install.html

Install the 32 or 64 bit version for your system. The default settings and packages should include what you need so you don't have to change anything once you get to the packages screen.

After installation, copy the Cygwin folder path to your environment path variables. For example; if you installed cygwin to C:\Cygwin, you will add the following to your environment system path variables:

;C:\Cygwin\bin

On my system I installed the 64bit version and the default folder name and path was C:\cygwin64. So i added the following to my system environment path variables:

;C:\cygwin64\bin

Restart your terminal if it's open. Then type ls and you'll see a directory listing.

See the following if you are not familiar with setting PATH environment variables:

Superuser Link 1

Superuser Link 2