ls gives total 8 when dir empty

JavaNinja · 09-27-2008, 07:30 PM

Hello all,

Can some help me understand this:

Code:

[root@ip folder]# ls -lart
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Sep 26 09:48 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 26 09:48 .

I only see 2 things, what does the "total 8" mean?

Sorry for the nooby question, didn't know how to phrase this in google.

Thanks all

MS3FGX · 09-27-2008, 09:13 PM

The total isn't the count of the files listed, but the size. While there are no "files" in the traditional sense, the "../" and "./" links have a size to them so they are counted.

JavaNinja · 09-28-2008, 11:38 AM

Ah, I see. Is the size in KB?

PTrenholme · 09-29-2008, 10:53 PM

Code:

$ ls -larth empty
total 8.0K
drwx------ 52 Peter Peter 4.0K 2008-09-29 20:50 ..
drwxrwxr-x  2 Peter Peter 4.0K 2008-09-29 20:50 .

JavaNinja · 09-30-2008, 04:34 AM

Many thanks for that.