Quick Directory Size Question

pxumsgdxpcvjm · 03-30-2007, 05:45 AM

Hi. I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but how can I get the total size of all the files (not directories) in a directory and all its subdirectories.

By searching, I've found the du command but it is adding the . directory(?) size to the total. Here's what I mean...

Code:

bash-3.1$ ls -al

total 26
drwxr-xr-x  2 richard users  168 2007-02-20 15:21 .
drwxr-xr-x 27 richard users 1408 2007-03-30 22:36 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 richard users 5909 2007-02-20 13:54 bg.png
-rw-r--r--  1 richard users 4815 2007-02-18 22:04 counter.png
-rw-r--r--  1 richard users 1150 2007-02-20 15:21 favicon.ico
-rw-r--r--  1 richard users  789 2007-02-20 15:42 index.htm

So by adding all the files together, I get 12,663 bytes in total. When I use the du command, it tells me that the folder is 12,831 in size.

What can I do to resolve this? I've tried a bunch of arguments to du but it makes no difference.

Thanks to any replies.

Simon Bridge · 03-30-2007, 06:09 AM

Show us the du command and it's output please. I get:

Code:

simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ ls -al
total 1748
drwxr-xr-x 3 simon simon   4096 2007-03-19 20:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 simon simon   4096 2007-03-21 21:04 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon  55079 2007-03-16 15:30 aulug-tut1-intro.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon  34744 2007-03-16 15:30 lesson0.odt
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon  47329 2007-03-16 15:42 lessons.odt
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon 460737 2007-03-16 15:42 lessons.pdf
drwxr-xr-x 2 simon simon   4096 2007-03-13 17:39 licenses
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon 832414 2007-03-19 11:05 tutorial.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon 315864 2007-03-19 01:20 ualug-web.tar.bz2
simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ du -ah
36K     ./lesson0.odt
4.0K    ./licenses/ccsa.txt
20K     ./licenses/gnugplv2.txt
668K    ./licenses/gplvseula.pdf
104K    ./licenses/vista-eula.pdf
800K    ./licenses
456K    ./lessons.pdf
48K     ./lessons.odt
60K     ./aulug-tut1-intro.pdf
316K    ./ualug-web.tar.bz2
820K    ./tutorial.tar.gz
2.5M    .
simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ du -h
800K    ./licenses
2.5M    .
simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$

There are 2.5 MiB of files in the working directory, of which 800MiB are in the licenses subdirectory. The size of the subdirectory doesn't appear to have been been included in this.

pwc101 · 03-30-2007, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Bridge

Show us the du command and it's output please. I get:

Code:

simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ ls -al
total 1748
drwxr-xr-x 3 simon simon   4096 2007-03-19 20:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 simon simon   4096 2007-03-21 21:04 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon  55079 2007-03-16 15:30 aulug-tut1-intro.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon  34744 2007-03-16 15:30 lesson0.odt
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon  47329 2007-03-16 15:42 lessons.odt
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon 460737 2007-03-16 15:42 lessons.pdf
drwxr-xr-x 2 simon simon   4096 2007-03-13 17:39 licenses
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon 832414 2007-03-19 11:05 tutorial.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 simon simon 315864 2007-03-19 01:20 ualug-web.tar.bz2
simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ du -ah
36K     ./lesson0.odt
4.0K    ./licenses/ccsa.txt
20K     ./licenses/gnugplv2.txt
668K    ./licenses/gplvseula.pdf
104K    ./licenses/vista-eula.pdf
800K    ./licenses
456K    ./lessons.pdf
48K     ./lessons.odt
60K     ./aulug-tut1-intro.pdf
316K    ./ualug-web.tar.bz2
820K    ./tutorial.tar.gz
2.5M    .
simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ du -h
800K    ./licenses
2.5M    .
simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$

There are 2.5 MiB of files in the working directory, of which 800MiB are in the licenses subdirectory. The size of the subdirectory doesn't appear to have been been included in this.

Is the licenses directory not 800KiB?

druuna · 03-30-2007, 06:16 AM

Hi,

ls reports the size of the file, du on the other hand reports the amount of blocks (-k will give 1024 instead of the default 512 bytes) it occupies on disk. This is (almost) always larger then what ls reports.

Small files will occupy at least on block on your hd (blocksize differ, but are generally 4096 on modern system hd's). So a file that is 1 byte (shown by ls as being 1 byte) will show up in du as being 4096 bytes. Du also reports in 512 byte blocks (or 1024 if -k is used).

Hope this helps.

pxumsgdxpcvjm · 03-30-2007, 06:43 AM

Yea, thanks for your help. So there is no standard way to figure this out?

Simon Bridge · 03-30-2007, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Is the licenses directory not 800KiB?

Of course not - check out the contents.

4.0K ./licenses/ccsa.txt
20K ./licenses/gnugplv2.txt
668K ./licenses/gplvseula.pdf
104K ./licenses/vista-eula.pdf

4+20+668+104=796K
... do you suspect that the missing 4K is the space used by the directory itself?
(rt-click on licences and select "properties" and I see it listed as 779.2K ... remeber, there is rounding to consider with du.)

But you were comparing du with ls

Code:

simon@errata:~/projects/tutorial$ ls -l licenses
total 796
[snip]

See?

Quote:

Yea, thanks for your help. So there is no standard way to figure this out?

I think the thing to ask here is "what are you trying to achieve?"

Presumably you could write a script to get the size of regular files only out of an ls output and then add them, but why would you want to?

du will tell you how much disk space a given directory occupies if you have restricted space in your account, and ls will tell you how big the files are if you want to move them to another media and you want to know if they will fit.

pwc101 · 03-31-2007, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Bridge

Quote:

Is the licenses directory not 800KiB?

Of course not - check out the contents.

4.0K ./licenses/ccsa.txt
20K ./licenses/gnugplv2.txt
668K ./licenses/gplvseula.pdf
104K ./licenses/vista-eula.pdf

4+20+668+104=796K
... do you suspect that the missing 4K is the space used by the directory itself?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Bridge

<snip> ... of which 800MiB are in the licenses subdirectory.

I was just checking if you'd meant to type 800MiB in your first post, not questioning your logic

Nice clarification though!

Simon Bridge · 03-31-2007, 10:55 PM

Quote:

I was just checking if you'd meant to type 800MiB in your first post, not questioning your logic Nice clarification though!

Ah... easy mistake to make.

I didn't type that stuff at all, I used cut and paste from actual commands run in terminal on my system. So all that was the exact output.

A tip: this is what you should do when you are representing the results of commands/programs you run in terminal. As much as possible, copy over the entire command run as well as the output. This way, everyone can be sure there are no typos in this vital information.

Just drag the mouse over the text to select it, then rt-click your selection for the menu.