ls returns files in a line when it connects to stdout.
$ ls a b c
when it redirects to a file
$ ls > foo.txt $ cat foo.txt a b c
I realize the option -C
$ ls -C > hoge.txt $ cat hoge.txt a b c
However, when a list of files has many, ls puts carriage returns in the list.
like
a b c d e f g h i j k l ....
How can I have
a b c d e f g h i j k l.....(without n)
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Answer
I don’t know if ls provides an option for that and I haven’t looked it up.
Since the question doesn’t specifically ask for a very fast or computationally efficient solution, I recommend to synthesize a command using ls and sed:
ls "$dir" | sed -z 's/n/ /g'
It takes the ls output and replaces all newlines n with spaces.
The -z switch is required because otherwise sed would work line-oriented, and sed‘s pattern matcher would never see the n.
You will have a problem if one of your filenames in $dir contains spaces.
If computational efficiency is a concern, I recommend searching for such an option (man ls) or writing a program that does just that (using, e.g., the C language).