[CentOS] ls --author ?

I want a script to determine the owner of a particular file and 
then "sudo -u <thatuserid> <somecomand>". I ran across the --author 
option of ls but that does not seem to give me anything useful.  It 
prints a short form of the filename without any other information 
at all.  In fact, the output of ls --author is indistinguishable 
from that of ls by itself:


> # ls --author htdocs/*
> htdocs/hlllogo.png
> # ls htdocs/*
> htdocs/hlllogo.png
> #


Is there a linux command that will return just the userid in a form 
that can be passed to sudo or do I have to parse ls -l <filename>?


I am digest subscriber so, if you could provide one, the favour of 
a direct copy of your reply is requested.

Regards,
Jim

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