Gnu/coreutils/du-invocation
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14.2 du
: Estimate file space usage
du
reports the amount of disk space used by the set of specified files
and for each subdirectory (of directory arguments). Synopsis:
du [option]… [file]…
With no arguments, du
reports the disk space for the current
directory. Normally the disk space is printed in units of
1024 bytes, but this can be overridden (see Block size).
Non-integer quantities are rounded up to the next higher unit.
If two or more hard links point to the same file, only one of the hard
links is counted. The file
argument order affects which links
are counted, and changing the argument order may change the numbers
and entries that du
outputs.
The program accepts the following options. Also see Common options.
- ‘
-0
’
‘--null
’ Output a zero byte (ASCII NUL) at the end of each line, rather than a newline. This option enables other programs to parse the output even when that output would contain data with embedded newlines.
- ‘
-a
’
‘--all
’ Show counts for all files, not just directories.
- ‘
--apparent-size
’ Print apparent sizes, rather than disk usage. The apparent size of a file is the number of bytes reported by
wc -c
on regular files, or more generally,ls -l --block-size=1
orstat --format=%s
. For example, a file containing the word ‘zoo
’ with no newline would, of course, have an apparent size of 3. Such a small file may require anywhere from 0 to 16 KiB or more of disk space, depending on the type and configuration of the file system on which the file resides. However, a sparse file created with this command:dd bs=1 seek=2GiB if=/dev/null of=big
has an apparent size of 2 GiB, yet on most modern systems, it actually uses almost no disk space.
- ‘
-B size
’
‘--block-size=size
’ Scale sizes by
size
before printing them (see Block size). For example,-BG
prints sizes in units of 1,073,741,824 bytes.- ‘
-b
’
‘--bytes
’ Equivalent to
--apparent-size --block-size=1
.- ‘
-c
’
‘--total
’ Print a grand total of all arguments after all arguments have been processed. This can be used to find out the total disk usage of a given set of files or directories.
- ‘
-D
’
‘--dereference-args
’ Dereference symbolic links that are command line arguments. Does not affect other symbolic links. This is helpful for finding out the disk usage of directories, such as
/usr/tmp
, which are often symbolic links.- ‘
-d depth
’
‘--max-depth=depth
’ Show the total for each directory (and file if –all) that is at most MAX_DEPTH levels down from the root of the hierarchy. The root is at level 0, so
du --max-depth=0
is equivalent todu -s
.- ‘
--files0-from=file
’ Disallow processing files named on the command line, and instead process those named in file
file
; each name being terminated by a zero byte (ASCII NUL). This is useful when the list of file names is so long that it may exceed a command line length limitation. In such cases, runningdu
viaxargs
is undesirable because it splits the list into pieces and makesdu
print with the--total
(-c
) option for each sublist rather than for the entire list. One way to produce a list of ASCII NUL terminated file names is with GNUfind
, using its-print0
predicate. Iffile
is ‘-
’ then the ASCII NUL terminated file names are read from standard input.- ‘
-H
’ Equivalent to
--dereference-args
(-D
).- ‘
-h
’
‘--human-readable
’ Append a size letter to each size, such as ‘
M
’ for mebibytes. Powers of 1024 are used, not 1000; ‘M
’ stands for 1,048,576 bytes. This option is equivalent to--block-size=human-readable
. Use the--si
option if you prefer powers of 1000.- ‘
--inodes
’ List inode usage information instead of block usage. This option is useful for finding directories which contain many files, and therefore eat up most of the inodes space of a file system (see
df
, option--inodes
). It can well be combined with the options-a
,-c
,-h
,-l
,-s
,-S
,-t
and-x
; however, passing other options regarding the block size, for example-b
,-m
and--apparent-size
, is ignored.- ‘
-k
’ Print sizes in 1024-byte blocks, overriding the default block size (see Block size). This option is equivalent to
--block-size=1K
.- ‘
-L
’
‘--dereference
’ Dereference symbolic links (show the disk space used by the file or directory that the link points to instead of the space used by the link).
- ‘
-l
’
‘--count-links
’ Count the size of all files, even if they have appeared already (as a hard link).
- ‘
-m
’ Print sizes in 1,048,576-byte blocks, overriding the default block size (see Block size). This option is equivalent to
--block-size=1M
.- ‘
-P
’
‘--no-dereference
’ For each symbolic links encountered by
du
, consider the disk space used by the symbolic link.- ‘
-S
’
‘--separate-dirs
’ Normally, in the output of
du
(when not using--summarize
), the size listed next to a directory name,d
, represents the sum of sizes of all entries beneathd
as well as the size ofd
itself. With--separate-dirs
, the size reported for a directory name,d
, will exclude the size of any subdirectories.- ‘
--si
’ Append an SI-style abbreviation to each size, such as ‘
M
’ for megabytes. Powers of 1000 are used, not 1024; ‘M
’ stands for 1,000,000 bytes. This option is equivalent to--block-size=si
. Use the-h
or--human-readable
option if you prefer powers of 1024.- ‘
-s
’
‘--summarize
’ Display only a total for each argument.
- ‘
-t size
’
‘--threshold=size
’ Exclude entries based on a given
size
. Thesize
refers to used blocks in normal mode (see Block size), or inodes count in conjunction with the--inodes
option.If
size
is positive, thendu
will only print entries with a size greater than or equal to that.If
size
is negative, thendu
will only print entries with a size smaller than or equal to that.Although GNU
find
can be used to find files of a certain size,du
’s--threshold
option can be used to also filter directories based on a given size.Please note that the
--threshold
option can be combined with the--apparent-size
option, and in this case would elide entries based on its apparent size.Please note that the
--threshold
option can be combined with the--inodes
option, and in this case would elide entries based on its inodes count.Here’s how you would use
--threshold
to find directories with a size greater than or equal to 200 megabytes:du --threshold=200MB
Here’s how you would use
--threshold
to find directories and files - note the-a
- with an apparent size smaller than or equal to 500 bytes:du -a -t -500 --apparent-size
Here’s how you would use
--threshold
to find directories on the root file system with more than 20000 inodes used in the directory tree below:du --inodes -x --threshold=20000 /
- ‘
--time
’ Show the most recent modification timestamp (mtime) of any file in the directory, or any of its subdirectories. See File timestamps.
- ‘
--time=ctime
’
‘--time=status
’
‘--time=use
’ Show the most recent status change timestamp (ctime) of any file in the directory, or any of its subdirectories. See File timestamps.
- ‘
--time=atime
’
‘--time=access
’ Show the most recent access timestamp (atime) of any file in the directory, or any of its subdirectories. See File timestamps.
- ‘
--time-style=style
’ List timestamps in style
style
. This option has an effect only if the--time
option is also specified. Thestyle
should be one of the following:- ‘
+format
’ List timestamps using
format
, whereformat
is interpreted like the format argument ofdate
(see date invocation). For example,--time-style="+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
causesdu
to list timestamps like ‘2002-03-30 23:45:56
’. As withdate
,format
’s interpretation is affected by theLC_TIME
locale category.- ‘
full-iso
’ List timestamps in full using ISO 8601-like date, time, and time zone components with nanosecond precision, e.g., ‘
2002-03-30 23:45:56.477817180 -0700
’. This style is equivalent to ‘+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%N %z
’.- ‘
long-iso
’ List ISO 8601 date and time components with minute precision, e.g., ‘
2002-03-30 23:45
’. These timestamps are shorter than ‘full-iso
’ timestamps, and are usually good enough for everyday work. This style is equivalent to ‘+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M
’.- ‘
iso
’ List ISO 8601 dates for timestamps, e.g., ‘
2002-03-30
’. This style is equivalent to ‘+%Y-%m-%d
’.
You can specify the default value of the
--time-style
option with the environment variableTIME_STYLE
; ifTIME_STYLE
is not set the default style is ‘long-iso
’. For compatibility withls
, ifTIME_STYLE
begins with ‘+
’ and contains a newline, the newline and any later characters are ignored; ifTIME_STYLE
begins with ‘posix-
’ the ‘posix-
’ is ignored; and ifTIME_STYLE
is ‘locale
’ it is ignored.- ‘
- ‘
-X file
’
‘--exclude-from=file
’ Like
--exclude
, except take the patterns to exclude fromfile
, one per line. Iffile
is ‘-
’, take the patterns from standard input.- ‘
--exclude=pattern
’ When recursing, skip subdirectories or files matching
pattern
. For example,du --exclude='*.o'
excludes files whose names end in ‘.o
’.- ‘
-x
’
‘--one-file-system
’ Skip directories that are on different file systems from the one that the argument being processed is on.
On BSD systems, du
reports sizes that are half the correct
values for files that are NFS-mounted from HP-UX systems. On HP-UX
systems, it reports sizes that are twice the correct values for
files that are NFS-mounted from BSD systems. This is due to a flaw
in HP-UX; it also affects the HP-UX du
program.
An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value indicates failure.
Next: stat invocation, Previous: df invocation, Up: Disk usage [Contents][Index]