Hi. I have been look at the method of setting up color ls used by people and I am convinced something is wrong with what is being recommended. What seems to be the normal method is to put the following line in ones .bashrc and .bash_profile:
eval 'dircolors -b [file]' alias ls='ls --color=auto' where file can be omitted if one chooses to use the defaults. The above example also assumes that one is using bash shell. What I am finding is that when eval 'dircolors -b' (I am want the default colors for now) is executed it does not set my environment variable LS_COLORS. The alias command works but because I have not set LS_COLORS the ls command only colors the directories. When I manually set my LS_COLORS variable (by copying dircolors output to a xterm/rxvt term) and then check my LS_COLORS variable I find that it is set. Once this is done the ls command (ie alias ls --color=auto) displays the full range of colors supplied in the dircolors compiled in data base. What is happening here? Is eval the wrong command for executing dircolors output on a command by command basis? Any help is greatly appreciated. MTY
