Differents Directory size and files size.

[ckchai]

Hi,

When I "cd /tmp" and do a "ls -l" it show me there is a directory call "Backup" when I look at the size, it is 96. Is this 96 mean 96kb?

Then when I go into the "/tmp/backup" and do a "ls -l", it has only 1 file and the size is 51200. It is 51kb.

why the "ls -l" at /tmp show "Backup" directory is 96? and When go in the actual filesize is 51200?

[Tom Ward_1]

Hello,

You are seeing the size of the directory entry when you look at /tmp/Backup. That size grows based on the number of files in the directory, not the size of the files in the directory.

I you run a loop and touch a bunch of files in /tmp/Backup the size of /tmp/Backup will grow, but the files will all be zero bytes.

HTH,
Tom

[Arunvijai_4]

Both are different.. When you look at a directory, it is just a size of that *directory*.. When you look at a file size, you will get only *the size of that file*.. Directories are special files under Unix.

-Arun

[Steve McClendon_1]

If you want to see the size of the directory in Kilobytes, do the following:

du -sk /tmp/backup

Please remember to assign points. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Steve

[Devender Khatana · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The size of directory has nothing to do with the size of files in the directory. It is allthough linked to the no. of files in directory. As the no. of files grow in a directory, the directory size grows. But it is not other way round, the size of directory will never reduce and will remain at its max. value ever reached.

For ex. you create a directory and then created some 100 files in it of zero bytes, the directory size will increase and will remain same even if you delete all of those 100 files in that directory.

HTH,
Devender