[bash] How to get the list of files in a directory in a shell script?

I'm trying to get the contents of a directory using shell script.

My script is:

for entry in `ls $search_dir`; do
    echo $entry
done

where $search_dir is a relative path. However, $search_dir contains many files with whitespaces in their names. In that case, this script does not run as expected.

I know I could use for entry in *, but that would only work for my current directory.

I know I can change to that directory, use for entry in * then change back, but my particular situation prevents me from doing that.

I have two relative paths $search_dir and $work_dir, and I have to work on both simultaneously, reading them creating/deleting files in them etc.

So what do I do now?

PS: I use bash.

$ pwd; ls -l
/home/victoria/test
total 12
-rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria    0 Apr 23 11:31  a
-rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria    0 Apr 23 11:31  b
-rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria    0 Apr 23 11:31  c
-rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria    0 Apr 23 11:32 'c d'
-rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria    0 Apr 23 11:31  d
drwxr-xr-x 2 victoria victoria 4096 Apr 23 11:32  dir_a
drwxr-xr-x 2 victoria victoria 4096 Apr 23 11:32  dir_b
-rw-r--r-- 1 victoria victoria    0 Apr 23 11:32 'e; f'

$ find . -type f
./c
./b
./a
./d
./c d
./e; f

$ find . -type f | sed 's/^\.\///g' | sort
a
b
c
c d
d
e; f

$ find . -type f | sed 's/^\.\///g' | sort > tmp

$ cat tmp
a
b
c
c d
d
e; f

Variations

$ pwd
/home/victoria

$ find $(pwd) -maxdepth 1 -type f -not -path '*/\.*' | sort
/home/victoria/new
/home/victoria/new1
/home/victoria/new2
/home/victoria/new3
/home/victoria/new3.md
/home/victoria/new.md
/home/victoria/package.json
/home/victoria/Untitled Document 1
/home/victoria/Untitled Document 2

$ find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -not -path '*/\.*' | sed 's/^\.\///g' | sort
new
new1
new2
new3
new3.md
new.md
package.json
Untitled Document 1
Untitled Document 2

Notes:

• . : current folder
• remove -maxdepth 1 to search recursively
• -type f : find files, not directories (d)
• -not -path '*/\.*' : do not return .hidden_files
• sed 's/^\.\///g' : remove the prepended ./ from the result list

This is a way to do it where the syntax is simpler for me to understand:

yourfilenames=`ls ./*.txt`
for eachfile in $yourfilenames
do
   echo $eachfile
done

./ is the current working directory but could be replaced with any path
*.txt returns anything.txt
You can check what will be listed easily by typing the ls command straight into the terminal.

Basically, you create a variable yourfilenames containing everything the list command returns as a separate element, and then you loop through it. The loop creates a temporary variable eachfile that contains a single element of the variable it's looping through, in this case a filename. This isn't necessarily better than the other answers, but I find it intuitive because I'm already familiar with the ls command and the for loop syntax.

Here's another way of listing files inside a directory (using a different tool, not as efficient as some of the other answers).

cd "search_dir"
for [ z in `echo *` ]; do
    echo "$z"
done

echo * Outputs all files of the current directory. The for loop iterates over each file name and prints to stdout.

Additionally, If looking for directories inside the directory then place this inside the for loop:

if [ test -d $z ]; then
    echo "$z is a directory"
fi

test -d checks if the file is a directory.

The other answers on here are great and answer your question, but this is the top google result for "bash get list of files in directory", (which I was looking for to save a list of files) so I thought I would post an answer to that problem:

ls $search_path > filename.txt

If you want only a certain type (e.g. any .txt files):

ls $search_path | grep *.txt > filename.txt

Note that $search_path is optional; ls > filename.txt will do the current directory.

for entry in "$search_dir"/* "$work_dir"/*
do
  if [ -f "$entry" ];then
    echo "$entry"
  fi
done

Just enter this simple command:

ls -d */

find "${search_dir}" "${work_dir}" -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} echo "{}"

The accepted answer will not return files prefix with a . To do that use

for entry in "$search_dir"/* "$search_dir"/.[!.]* "$search_dir"/..?*
do
  echo "$entry"
done