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Full Discussion: df vs du for directory sizes
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users df vs du for directory sizes Post 302538385 by mock on Tuesday 12th of July 2011 09:22:28 PM
Old 07-12-2011
df reports file system disk space usage. Thus, given an argument, FILE, it will report the disk space usage of the filesystem containing FILE. Note that it is not reporting the disk space usage of the directory represented by FILE.

du on the other hand, given an argument FILE, reports the disk space usage of the directory represented by FILE. Presumably, it performs a recursive directory traversal of FILE adding the reported size of each file until the traversal is complete. In contrast with df, du may potentially report cumulative file sizes from files on multiple filesystems.

But, to answer your question more directly--it is best to use du. In many cases (depending on the number of files in the directory represented by FILE), du will take many times longer to execute than df due to the aforementioned directory traversal so expect to wait a little.
 

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PAGESIZES(5)							File Formats Manual						      PAGESIZES(5)

NAME
pagesizes - HylaFAX page size definitions DESCRIPTION
The pagesizes database defines the page dimensions and guaranteed reproducible areas (GRA) for well-known page sizes. The GRA is the por- tion of the page that is guaranteed to be imaged during facsimile transmission. This region is typically less than the full page dimen- sions because of paper roller contacts and other mechanical aspects of the printing process in a facsimile machine. All HylaFAX programs that require page size information read the information from this database using a page size name. Documents should be prepared such that the full page dimensions are employed with the imaged area contained within the GRA. The system-wide default page size to use in preparing documents for transmission is given by the ``default'' entry in the database. (NB: the default entry should be placed last so that inverse matches find the real page size name and not the default entry.) The page size database is an ASCII file with the following format. Each entry consists of whitespace-separated fields: name abbrev width height gra-width gra-height top-margin left-margin Fields have the following interpretation: name the full name for the page size; e.g. ISO A4; abbrev an abbreviated version of the full name for use in compact listings such as the receive queue listing printed by faxstat(1); width the full width of the page; height the full height of the page; gra-width the width of the GRA; gra-height the height of the GRA; top-margin the margin between the top of the full page and the top of the GRA; left-margin the margin between the left side of the full page the left side of the GRA. The first two fields must be separated from the subsequent fields by a tab character (possibly followed by more whitespace); this is done to easily permit blank characters to be included in names. Otherwise fields can be separated by any amount of any kind of whitespace. Numbers are all base 10 and in basic measurement units (BMU); defined as 1/1200 x 25.4 millimeters for paper output with a scale factor of one. All fields must be present on a single line; otherwise the entry is ignored. Comments are introduced by the ``#'' character and con- tinue to the end the line. Page size database lookups are either by name or by page dimensions. Lookups by name are done by sequentially scanning the entries in the database for the first entry that has a matching abbreviation or substring of the page size name field. The string comparisons ignore case so, for example, ``a4'' would match a full name of ``ISO A4''. Lookups by dimension scan the entire database and return the page with the closest dimensions using a straightforward distance metric. If the difference in dimensions of the closest match is greater than 1/2 inch on each side, then no page entry is returned for a lookup by dimension. SEE ALSO
hylafax-client(1), faxmail(1), faxstat(1), sendfax(1), sgi2fax(1), textfmt(1). December 5, 1994 PAGESIZES(5)
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