mjhjmtu

I am trying to set the LS_COLORS environment variable using a launcher script. However this variable is not being set.

Steps

1. Downloaded LS_COLORS to ~/.dircolors




2. Added TERM=xterm-newTerminalEmulator where all the other TERM variables were defined in .dircolors




3. Created a launcher script in ~/bin/ls



4. 
   

   Populated this launcher script with the shebang, eval to pass the strings in bracket as a command to the shell and exec to replace all processes with just the ls process:

   
   
   

   #!/bin/sh
eval $(dircolors -b ~/.dircolors)
exec /bin/ls "$@"

   
   



5. Made the ~/bin/ls file executable.

The man page for dir_colors says

Usually,
the file used here is /etc/DIR_COLORS and can be overridden by a
.dir_colors file in one's home directory.

Would this be why its not working, considering only the system wide /etc/DIR_COLORS script is being used?

Additionally

I also have an alias for ls set as alias ls = "ls --color" and echo $LS_COLORS shows nothing.

System specifications are: fedora28 and bash

UPDATE

I got this working, but I am not satisfied with the colors. The defaults are more intuitive, not only this but LS_COLORS does not differentiate between executables and symlinks which is a deal breaker.

The documentation's vague, but setting the environment variable isn't enough: you need the --color option. Without an option value, that corresponds to --color=always (most people expect --color=auto, which suppresses the color in a pipe).

You can see how the --color option is treated in the source-code for ls, in particular the variable print_with_color and its interaction with LS_COLORS.

For what it's worth, the eval command is needed to evaluate the export command returned by dircolors, and that environment variable is preserved across the exec. Your example (with the added --color option) worked for me with bash and dash.

You're running dircolors in a subshell, so the changes only apply within the subshell.

The subshell is $( ... )

Try this instead...

alias ls="dircolors -b ~/.dircolors && ls"