bash : recursive listing of all files problem - bash

Question

Run a recursive listing of all the
files in /var/log and redirect
standard output to a file called
lsout.txt in your home directory.
Complete this question WITHOUT leaving
your home directory.
An: ls -R /var/log/ >
/home/bqiu/lsout.txt
I reckon the above bash command is not correct. Because I found what it stores was :
$ ls -R /var/log
/var/log:
empty.txt setup.log setup.log.full tmp
/var/log/tmp:
fake.txt subfolder
/var/log/tmp/subfolder:
Does that mean problem resolved?
I reckon NOT.
Because it contains more "stuff" than "only files"
Or at least, if the purpose was to locate all "files" underneath the "/var/log" directory
recursively, then I hope to get the anwser like this:
/var/log/empty.txt
/var/log/setup.log
/var/log/setup.log.full
/var/log/tmp/fake.txt
So then someone can parse the content of the output for later use. Such like
$ perl -wnle 'print "$. :" , $_;' logfiles
1 :/var/log/empty.txt
2 :/var/log/setup.log
3 :/var/log/setup.log.full
4 :/var/log/tmp/fake.txt
This is what I've got so far:
$ ls -1R
.:
cal.sh
cokemachine.sh
dir
sort
test.sh
./dir:
afile.txt
file
subdir
./dir/subdir:
$ ls -R | sed s/^.*://g
cal.sh
cokemachine.sh
dir
sort
test.sh
afile.txt
file
subdir
But this still leaves all directory/sub-directory names (dir and subdir), plus a couple of empty newlines
How could I get the correct result without using Perl or awk? Preferably using only basic bash commands(this is just because Perl and awk is out of assessment scope)
Edited : I focused on my own "$HOME" folder just to restrict the file listed. I am having little content in my homedir
Edited 2nd: Sorry about my inapproprated question in the initial form. I fixed the wording and hopefully everyone can see the problem now.

Answer 1

Try -
find /var/log > ~/lsout.txt

Answer 2

If you were given no restrictions in terms of which commands can or cannot be used, ls -R /var/log >~/lsout.txt or find /var/log -print >"$HOME/lsout.txt" or any similar combination will work just fine.
However, if the point of the assignment is to write a 100% sh-based implementation, without using ls -R, find, etc. then you should be producing something along the lines of:
#!/bin/sh
# Helper method which recursively lists the contents of a given directory
# Usage: recurse_ls target_directory
recurse_ls()
{
TARGET_DIR="$1"
# list contents of $TARGET_DIR
...
# - recursive call to list contents of sub-directories
recurse_ls ...
...
}
# MAIN
# Usage: script.sh target_directory
# - check that parameters to script.sh are correct
...
# - list the contents of target_dir and its subdirectories
recurse_ls "$1"
Useful links:
variable expansion and parameter substitution
file type test operations
globbing (wildcard expansion)
quoting to account for blanks in variable values (including filenames)

Answer 3

I'd guess that the answer they want is:
ls -R /var/log/ > /home/bqiu/lsout.txt
ie. the original answer you said was wrong.
Except you may want to write it as:
ls -R /var/log/ > ~/lsout.txt.
That way it outputs to the home directory of whoever is logged in, rather than just user "bqiu".
When it says: Run a recursive listing of all the files
To me ls stands for listing and the -R option stands for recursive.
So to me the wording of the question suggests using ls -R to produce the listing,
But a it depends upon what format they want the listing.