Get Directory Size from Shell

By  on  

My first goal when coding is usually to make it work and then clean up the code into a more maintainable format.  Many people prefer to keep code clean from start to finish but thinking "maintenance first" slows me down --- I like to GO GO GO!  Sometimes making code means the code size gets larger, sometimes it means getting smaller.

Oftentimes when I'm trying to abstract my CSS preprocessing code (Stylus), I abstract my mixins but want end up with the exact same CSS output.  What's the easiest way to check that the outcome is likely the same, without scouring the site and checking every section?  Checking the output directory size.  If the CSS code is the same size before and after changes, we're golden!  So how do we check directory size?

du -s 		# 16075464, recursive
du -sh 		# 7.7G, recursive, human readable

The commands above provide the directory size in different formats.  If you want to get the exact byte size of a directory, you can execute this slightly more complicated command:

find . -type f -exec ls -l {} \; | awk '{sum += $5} END {print sum}' # 8209358267

Of course something flukey could happen and the CSS change with the exact same size coming out, but this method isn't meant to be scientific.  And remember that these commands can be used for any number of purposes!

Recent Features

  • By
    Interview with a Pornhub Web Developer

    Regardless of your stance on pornography, it would be impossible to deny the massive impact the adult website industry has had on pushing the web forward. From pushing the browser's video limits to pushing ads through WebSocket so ad blockers don't detect them, you have...

  • By
    Regular Expressions for the Rest of Us

    Sooner or later you'll run across a regular expression. With their cryptic syntax, confusing documentation and massive learning curve, most developers settle for copying and pasting them from StackOverflow and hoping they work. But what if you could decode regular expressions and harness their power? In...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Fullscreen API

    As we move toward more true web applications, our JavaScript APIs are doing their best to keep up.  One very simple but useful new JavaScript API is the Fullscreen API.  The Fullscreen API provides a programmatic way to request fullscreen display from the user, and exit...

  • By
    pointer Media Query

    As more devices emerge and differences in device interaction are implemented, the more important good CSS code will become.  In order to write good CSS, we need some indicator about device capabilities.  We've used CSS media queries thus far, with checks for max-width and pixel ratios.

Discussion

  1. JP

    I think your comments on du are misleading. du -s and du -sh both give you the “recursive” size of the directory. The -h flag just gives you a “human readable” value, i.e. in MB or GB.

  2. Lars

    You can also use du -h -s * to display the size of each sub-directory in a list format, which can be very handy

  3. This is a brilliant trick and a neat usage of bash commands. I am still impressed about how much they are “composable” to create complex logics.

    Thanks for sharing it David

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!