GNU bug report logs - #61884
add an option to du that allows to control which file types are counted

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From: help-debbugs <at> gnu.org (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.org>
Subject: bug#61884: closed (Re: bug#61884: add an option to du that allows
 to control which file types are counted)
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2023 01:01:02 +0000

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Your bug report

#61884: add an option to du that allows to control which file types are counted

which was filed against the coreutils package, has been closed.

The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to 61884 <at> debbugs.gnu.org.

-- 
61884: https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=61884
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact help-debbugs <at> gnu.org with problems

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From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.org>
Cc: 61884-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#61884: add an option to du that allows to control which file
 types are counted
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2023 17:00:25 -0800

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On 2023-03-04 15:33, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:

> But would symlinks (i.e. their length) count for it?

Sure, because you can read symlinks by using readlink, and that gives 
you their lengths.

Come to think of it, POSIX specifies st_size only for regular files and 
symlinks among the files you'll find in a directory. So du --apparent 
should count st_size only for these file types; it should ignore st_size 
for other file types unless we know somehow that those sizes make sense 
(which for directories is problematic for the reasons you mention).


> What about hardlinked files, would they count once or n times?

That's an independent axis and is handled by -l. Hard links are not a 
file type.


>                b      block (buffered) special
>                c      character (unbuffered) special
>                d      directory
>                p      named pipe (FIFO)
>                f      regular file
>                l      symbolic link
>                s      socket
>                D      door (Solaris)

I expect Coreutils's already-existing usable_st_function should tell us 
which types have usable st_size. This will exclude directories, which 
should be the right thing for your use case.


So I installed the attached patch to fix du --apparent to count sizes 
only when st_size is well-defined. This should address your use case so 
I'm boldly closing the bug report.

[0001-du-apparent-counts-only-symlinks-and-regular.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

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From: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.org>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: add an option to du that allows to control which file types are
 counted
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2023 04:18:34 +0100

Hey.

When I want to count the nominal sizes of the (usually regular) files
in a directory I do something like:

du --apparent-size --block-size=1

This however also counts in the sizes of the directories themselves
(and I guess also of symlinks, etc.).


The "problem" with that is in particular, that for the exact same
dir/file structure, the results differ e.g. between ext4 and btrfs,
because of different sizes for the directories (themselves).

It would be nice if there was a option that allowed to select which
file types are counted.


Yes I know that one can do something like:
find . -type f -print0  |  du --apparent-size -l -c -s --block-size=1 --files0-from=- | tail -n

But that's rather cumbersome... also I cannot do something like
du path1 path2 path3
and get totals for each and a grand summary.

And even if I make an shell alias out of this, I cannot do bash completion on it.


Thanks,
Chris.

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