os.path.getsize Returns Incorrect Value?

Question

def size_of_dir(dirname):
    print("Size of directory: ")
    print(os.path.getsize(dirname))

is the code in question. dirname is a directory with 130 files of about 1kb each. When I call this function, it returns 4624, which is NOT the size of the directory...why is this?

Answer 1

This value (4624B) represents the size of the file that describes that directory. Directories are described as inodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode) that hold information about the files and directories it contains.

To get the number of files/subdirectories inside that path, use:

len(os.path.listdir(dirname))

To get the total amount of data, you could use the code in this question, that is (as @linker posted)

 sum([os.path.getsize(f) for f in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isfile(f)]).

Answer 2

Using os.path.getsize() will only get you the size of the directory, NOT of its content. So if you call getsize() on any directory you will always get the same size since they are all represented the same way. On contrary, if you call it on a file, it will return the actual file size.

If you want the content you will need to do it recursively, like below:

sum([os.path.getsize(f) for f in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isfile(f)])