UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have directories with name like:
aaa
bbb
ccc
...

I would like to to see which directories are the largest and then list the files within each. I have success using:

Code:

du -ks * | sort -rin | head -n 20

which gives me an output like:
120 bbb
27 ccc
3 aaa
...

I would like to be able to do a simple "ls" so I have a clearer view of what's in each of the big directory. Without knowing anything about xargs, I am trying:

Code:

du -ks * | sort -rin | head -n 20 | xargs ls

which gives me (on top of the errors) an alphabetical order list of "ls", instead of what I would like which is more like a "-exec ls {}" in "find"...

ls: 3: No such file or directory
ls: 120: No such file or directory
ls: 27: No such file or directory
aaa:
will_cover_page.gif

bbb:
will_dependents_page_2.gif will_dependents_page_4.gif
will_dependents_page_3.gif

ccc:
will_dependents_page_1.gif will_signatures.gif

Is there a more efficient way of doing this? Thanks in advance...

Code:

find /path/to/directories -type d -size +20 |
while read dirname
     ls -l $dirname
done > outputfile

Change the 20 (blocks) to whatever size suits you.

even this will do i guess...

Code:

find /path/to/directories -type d -size +20 |xargs ls -lrt

For:

Code:

find . -type d -size +2

I get this:
.
./99584B685FF3/bbb.app
./D3B9BA1F472/www.app
./830F3FF6E3F9/Documents
./A754A83053D/www.app
...
For some reason, it finds stuff one directory lower... "99584B685FF3" is the directory I am aiming for, so I tried

Code:

find . -type d -size +2 -maxdepth 1

I get:
. Shouln't it be something like ./99584B685FF3

and for

Code:

find . -type d -size +2 -maxdepth 2

.
./99584B685FF3/bbb.app
./D3B9BA1F472/www.app
./830F3FF6E3F9/Documents
./A754A83053D/www.app
...

What could be the reason. I initially thought directories were just "special files" in UNIX and do not have a size. But the "Documents" shown is really a directory.

Thanks for suggesting but still no go. Furthermore, I am losing all the size sorting - largest directory first