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best way to get a file's size?

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# 1  
Old 03-21-2004
best way to get a file's size?
I'm trying to get a file's size.
Specifically, I want to check whether a file is larger than 650MB.
I've tried:

find . -name "filename" -size +681574400 -print

Oddly, that didn't seem to work.
(NB: 1024 bytes x 1024 x 650 = 681574400 bytes = 650 MB)

The problem seems to be the "-size" primary and it's numerical argument "+681574400".

The man pages say:
Quote:
All primaries which take a numeric argument allow the number to be pre-
ceded by a plus sign (``+'') or a minus sign (``-''). A preceding plus
sign means ``more than n'', a preceding minus sign means ``less than n''
and neither means ``exactly n''.
So I don't understand why it doesn't work.
I have since found that the problem can also be solved by getting the file size with ls -l and awk, but I think that's to AWKward (horrible pun Smilie.

Seriously, I've got these questions:

- Why does the above not work and what needs to be done for it to work?

- What do people think is the best and safest way of doing such a file size check in a script?

NB: the shabang is #!/bin/sh -- I could obviously change that to anther shell/language, but I want to remain as compatible as possible.

Many thanks in advance!
# 2  
Old 03-21-2004
............
you could check the filesize inside a script with the "du" command, grep for the value

pressy
# 3  
Old 03-21-2004


try this

find . -name "filename*" -size +650c -exec ll {} \ ; 2> /dev/null

-size +650c (specifies file size in bytes, no space after integer value and the letter 'c')
Quote:
Why does the above not work and what needs to be done for it to work?
The default unit of measure the find command uses is blocks (512 bytes per block). You need to use the "c" parm to allow find to use bytes
Quote:
What do people think is the best and safest way of doing such a file size check in a script?
I could be wrong, but I think the answer is more a matter of preference. It also depends on what you are trying to do. You will probably get many differing answers to this question.
Quote:
NB: the shabang is #!/bin/sh -- I could obviously change that to anther shell/language, but I want to remain as compatible as possible.
Try using the Korn shell (ksh) (if available as it offers many more features than Bourne (sh) )
Last edited by google; 03-21-2004 at 08:56 PM..
# 4  
Old 03-21-2004
Thanks both!

I actually decided to use wc rather than du (or find) to be sure to get the actual size of the file (as opposed to the space that file is taking up on disk).

This is what I currently have and it SEEMS to work:

Quote:
if [ $# == 1 ] && [ -r "$1" ] && [ -f "$1" ] && [ `wc -c "$1" | awk '{print $1}'` -gt 681574400 ]; then
# I should add a check whether the current dir is writable
echo there is only one parameter AND it\'s writable AND it\'s an ordinary file AND it\'s bigger than 650MB
# (...)
fi
I'd still be interested to hear qualified opinions which way might be considered best practice.

Again, MANY thanks! Smilie
# 5  
Old 03-21-2004
Quote:
[ $# == 1 ] && [ -r "$1" ] && [ -f "$1" ] && [ `wc -c "$1" | awk '{print $1}'` -gt 681574400 ]; then
Check the bold portion of the script above. This should probably read [ $# -eq 1 ] And you should break up your logic into smaller more discrete steps! <in my opinion Smilie >
# 6  
Old 03-21-2004
Thanks google!!! Smilie
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