file' size

[Carme Torca]

Hi,

I have one file in one server, that has something strange.
If I do ls -l file -> its has 4 Gbs.
If I do du -ks file -> its has 2 Gbs

Does anyone knows why is it??
Thanks!
Carmen.

#ls -lrta
total 573600
drwxr-x--x 5 oraeed dba 96 Mar 11 17:10 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 oraeed dba 96 Mar 11 20:00 .
-rw-r----- 1 oraeed dba 4195360768 Aug 5 09:43 temp.data1
#du -ks *
286800 temp.data1

[Steve Steel · Accepted solution]

Hi

-k Gives the block count in 1024-byte blocks

These things are sparse files

1)Shows place reserved and the other place really used


Steve Steel

[Kent Ostby]

to illustrate the sparse file effect, copy the file to a new name and check out the sizes there.

They should match as the cp should by default fill in the "sparse" areas.

Best regards,

Kent M. Ostby