UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello all,

I do not understand the meaning of some columns in the result of executing 'ls -l'. For example, i got the following result by run 'ls -l'

total 3531


-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1351680 Oct 17 20:50 fileindex.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16384 Oct 17 20:50 groupindex.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16384 Oct 17 20:50 nameindex.rpm
drw-r--r-- 2 root root 233 Oct 17 20:50 dirA


I do not know

(1) what does the 'total 3531' mean in the first line
(2) what is the meaning of the second column, i.e., containing the number 1, 1, 1, 2.
(3)What is the meaning of the fifth column for a directory, such as the number '233' for the directory 'dirA'.


thanks

total 3531 --- total no.of block used in the directroy



Second column lists the number of hard links to that entry


When the size of the files in a directory are listed, the ls command
displays a total count of blocks, including indirect blocks.

pbsrinivas , thanks for your quick reply.

Do you mean the number '233' is the total number of blocks used by the directory 'dirA'.

How can i know/calculate the size in byte of a directory from the number of blocks used by the directory.

du -k . will give u in KB..

thanks again,

But, what on earth does the number '233' mean for the directory 'dirA'?

In Unix it's the size allocated for the directory itself (the file meta-data).