How to get a directory size

Hello, I'm working on windows 7. I'd like to get some directory size, and when I use the dir commands, I get 0 bytes size.

>> cd 'C:\Users\kr\mother_dir'
>> res = dir
>> res(3).isdir
    ans =
         1
 >> res(3).bytes
    ans =
         0

Whereas, I'm sure that the size of the son directory called res(3).name is strictly > 0.

Which command should I use please ? Thanks, Karine

Answer 1

[Titus Edelhofer]

Hi Karine,

you are right, MATLAB does not compute the size of a folder: the bytes for directories are always zero.

You will need to ask the operating system (windows, linux) for the size of a folder ... (or write some function that recursively collects all file sizes).

Titus

[Jan]

Collecting all files might not be enough. You have to decide, how "size" is defined for hard and soft links, if you consider alternate data streams and if you want the uncompressed size of files, which are compressed by the file system. Another problem is the possibly limited read-access to subfolders. Because this is not trivial and time-consuming, even the opearing systems do not display the folder sizes as default. The determination of the size of all child objects of a folder is such difficult, that I suggest to think twice, if you really need it.

Answer 2

[Jan]

The size of the directory is in fact 0. I assume you are looking for the size of all recursively contained files. Under *unix this can be determined by "du -sk" and for Windows the function DiskUsage helps: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896651.aspx. Both can be called through the system command, but the parsing of the output is not trivial also.