Note that davorg suggested using -s, which for a directory tells you the size of the directory entry itself - which grows (but in many filesystems doesn't shrink) with the number of files. The size reported does not have any relation at all with the sum of the sizes of the files inside a directory. Which to me, seems what the OP wants.

Note that even using -s to sum the sizes of the files in a directory has its problems - you have consider symlinks and hardlinks. The former may cause loops, or point to a totally different part of the filesystem, while hardlinks may cause you to count files two or more times if you aren't tracking inodes.

In reply to Re^4: How to find folder size by JavaFan
in thread How to find folder size by Selvakumar

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.