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Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:51:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Chris Hill <chris@monochrome.org>
To: Fbsd8 <fbsd8@a1poweruser.com>
Subject: Re: sh script code to get file size.
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On Fri, 18 Jan 2013, Fbsd8 wrote:

> In a script in am working on I need to find out the allocated
> size of a sparse file.
> The only command that comes to mind is "ls -lh"
> The "du -h" command is not appropriate because it will show
> the occupied size and not the allocated size.
>
> I don't know how to parse out to the position in the output of that
> "ls -lh" command to pickup the file size value.
>
> Is there some other way to do this?

To parse it out, I've used something like:

$ ls -lh npviewer.bin.core | cut -d \  -f 9
186M

After the backslash are two spaces: one being the space that's being 
escaped to make it the delimiter, the other to separate the options.

The number after the '-f' determines which "field" of the output is 
displayed, which may vary.

HTH.

-- 
Chris Hill               chris@monochrome.org
**                     [ Busy Expunging </> ]