[obiterdictum]

What is wrong with piping `ls`?

[dockd]

It's usually redundant. for i in * <--> for i in `ls`

[massysett]

Usually it is more pristine (from a theoretical standpoint) to use filename generation, aka globbing. You don't need a subprocess.

[q3k]

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs