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datadevil
Asked: 2012-01-21 07:48:42 +0800 CST

stat command filesize reporting on busybox

  • 772

I'm trying to write a shell script in busybox to check the filesize of a file. Having read that stat is more reliable then ls, I decided to use that, but somehow when using the following command:

stat -c %s filename

I get the following output: 559795. This goes for the following 2 files (shown using ls -la):

0 Jan 20 16:32 foo_empty
4 Jan 20 16:32 foo_not_empty

Anyone know what's happening there? I can just go back to using ls, but I'm not understanding what's happening here, and that's bothering me..

busybox sh

4 Answers

  1. if stat is reporting the same odd number for filesize, number of blocks, inode, and device. I'd suspect filesystem corruption. You might try fsck and see if it finds/fixes problems.

    • 1

  2. Works for me:

    ls -l foo_*
-rw------- 1 fooo users    0 Jan 20 10:30 foo_empty
-rw------- 1 fooo users 3767 Jan 20 10:30 foo_not_empty

busybox stat -c %s foo_empty; busybox stat -c %s foo_not_empty 
0
3767

    Are you using an old version of busybox, possibly on a 64 bit OS? I'm using

    BusyBox v1.19.3 (2012-01-03 13:39:53 PST) multi-call binary.
    • 0

  3. In my case, stat is missing from the busybox (embedded system). For me, performance isn't an issue, so I ended up with file_size="$(wc -c ./this-file)".

    • 0

  4. You can also use du to check file size. du -h will provide you with a "human readable" output.

    • -1