du man page -- explanation about --separate-dirs too terse

[ill]

When using the command "du --separate-dirs", subdirectories are still included in the results even thought the man page says that they should not.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Logan Rosen (logan)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . I have classified this bug as a bug in coreutils.

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[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Please:

1. state your Ubuntu, and coreutils, versions:
lsb_release -a
du --version (or dpkg -l coreutils)

2. provide an example of the error, with the command as executed, and the output; also state/show what you expected.

3. use 'ubuntu-bug' to open new bugs -- doing so would eliminate the need for question (1) above.

[ill (illumilore)]

$ du --version
du (GNU coreutils) 8.20
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Torbjörn Granlund, David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert,
and Jim Meyering.$ lsb_release -a
LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 13.04
Release: 13.04
Codename: raring

I expected it to only do the first level directories, as the man page says it would

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Actually, the man page does not state that --separete-dirs will only work on the first level subdirectories. It says:

       -S, --separate-dirs
              do not include size of subdirectories

info coreutils 'du invocation' expands this to:

`-S'
`--separate-dirs'
     Normally, in the output of `du' (when not using `--summarize'),
     the size listed next to a directory name, D, represents the sum of
     sizes of all entries beneath D as well as the size of D itself.
     With `--separate-dirs', the size reported for a directory name, D,
     is merely the `stat.st_size'-derived size of the directory entry,
     D.

So what --separate-dirs does is *not* count the specific directory size in the total for the directory.

What you want seems to be '--max-depth' (gives totals for directories down to max-depth from the CWD or provided anchor). For example, 'du --max-depth=1' will total on the immediate subdirectories from the CWD.

As such, closing INVALID (not a bug).

[ill (illumilore)]

The man page being deceptive is still a bug. The -S part should be fixed so that it actually means what the command does. "do not include size of subdirectories" has a different meaning from "separate directories".

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

I can agree that the brief explanation on the man page is too terse. I will ask about it upstream.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Upstream has proposed a new wording, and will commit the changes soon. for reference, the proposed patch has been attached here. This patch should be included in the next upstream release of coreutils (8.22, perhaps); it will eventually land on a future Ubuntu release.

As such, marking Triaged.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

For the record, my previous comment #5 was also incorrect: --separate-dirs will not include size of *subdirectories* in the size of the currently-being-processed directory.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "proposed (still to be committed) upstream patch" seems to be a patch. If it isn't, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are a member of the ~ubuntu-reviewers, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issues please contact him.]