When I do ls -l I get this:
calico@A000505:~/Documentos$ ls -l total 2020 -rwxr-xr-x 1 calico calico 8559 2010-11-16 11:12 a.out -rwxrw-rw- 1 smt smt 2050138 2010-10-14 10:40 Java2.pdf -rwxrw-rw- 1 ocv ocv 234 2010-11-16 11:11 test.c But what does the "total 2020" mean? I only have 3 files so it's not the number of files or directories, and I guess it's not the size either. So what is it?
The number of 1kB blocks used by the files in the directory, non-recursively.
Use ls -lh to have some more meaningful output.
ls -l ~ with ls -la ~, and ls -lA ~). The block size is 1kB with GNU tools, but 512B according to POSIX and most other current implementations. -h do? what does "total" mean in ls -al
Great question, it means you want to pay attention to detail. I'll illustrate with examples. Under my home directory /home/el there is a directory called tmpdir with files underneath it. I change to that directory and do ls -al
el@angeliqe ~/tmpdir $ ls -al total 20 drwxrwxr-x 4 el users 4096 Dec 21 11:45 . drwx--x--x 9 el users 4096 Dec 21 11:45 .. drwxrwxr-x 2 el users 4096 Dec 21 11:45 dirWithFiles drwxrwxr-x 2 el users 4096 Dec 21 11:44 emptydir -rw-rw-r-- 1 el users 182 Dec 21 11:45 myfile.txt It says 'total 20'. That translates to: "tmpdir uses 20K of space on disk for all of the directories and files".
with the -h option, you tell it to give it to you in human readable form:
el@angeliqe ~/tmpdir $ ls -alh total 20K drwxrwxr-x 4 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:45 . drwx--x--x 9 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:45 .. drwxrwxr-x 2 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:45 dirWithFiles drwxrwxr-x 2 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:44 emptydir -rw-rw-r-- 1 el users 182 Dec 21 11:45 myfile.txt It is interesting to note that a directory with nothing in it also takes up 8K space, in my case emptydir has nothing in it but shows as using 8K
el@angeliqe ~/tmpdir/emptydir $ ls -al total 8 drwxrwxr-x 2 el users 4096 Dec 21 11:44 . drwxrwxr-x 4 el users 4096 Dec 21 11:45 .. Adding an empty directory proves that directories take up 4K:
el@angeliqe ~/tmpdir/emptydir $ ls -alh total 12K drwxrwxr-x 3 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:54 . drwxrwxr-x 4 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:45 .. drwxrwxr-x 2 el users 4.0K Dec 21 11:54 blah Another command to investigate is du:
el@angeliqe ~/tmpdir/emptydir $ du 4 ./blah 8 . Also, you can look at file sizes to a certain depth:
el@angeliqe ~ $ du -h --max-depth=1 12K ./.ssh 4.0K ./my_recycle_bin 8.0K ./.vim 13G ./gnuoctbluehost 24K ./tmpdir 48K ./.subversion 152K ./.cpan 13G . el@angeliqe ~ $ Nobody mention about -s option(?). From man ls:
-s, --size print the allocated size of each file, in blocks
.. so if you list with ls -s then you will get number of blocks for each directory and file in current directory. When you summarize it then you will get exactly the same number as in total: you see on top of ls -l.
Extra: To get block size check this.
