Question

39

Why does every directory have a size 4096 bytes (4 K)?

rated 0 times [ 39] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 49152 / 2 Years ago, mon, october 17, 2022, 8:57:10

As the subject says; I want to know why is every directory having a size equals to 4K even if they contain files with sizes greater than 4K.

Please have a look at the following:-

$ ls -lh

total 2.0M

drwxr-xr-x 4 ankit ankit 4.0K Sep 11 07:28 Desktop



$ ls -lrh Desktop/

-rw-rw-r-- 1 ankit ankit 9.1M Aug 4 11:15 sophosthreatsaurusaz.pdf

-rw------- 1 ankit ankit 107K Dec 27 2010 KP 3 0.pdf

drwxrwsr-x 9 ankit ankit 4.0K Sep 10 19:26 eclipse

PS: I am aware of du -sh command line utility.

Edit: I am assuming directory as a container for files.

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splenueak

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2 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago tresein · Accepted Answer

Without getting too technical, think of a directory entry as simply a "link" to a list of the files the directory "contains."

Then, as with everything, ls shows you the size of that link, not the total space occupied by the contents of the directory.

The minimum size a file or directory entry/link must occupy is one block, which is usually 4096 bytes/4K on most ext3/4 filesystems.