On 2025-03-06 at 21:47, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Fri, Mar 07, 2025 at 02:41:33 +0000, Andy Smith wrote: > >> On Thu, Mar 06, 2025 at 09:33:40PM -0500, Maureen Thomas wrote: >> >>> root@debian:/home/maureen# cd /var >>> >>> root@debian:/var# du -sh* >>> >>> du: invalid option -- '*' >> >> Missing space between 'h' and '*' so the '*' was treated as an option, >> which is invalid. The '*' is unnecessary anyway. > > It's totally necessary. > > root@hobbit:/var# du -sh > 2.1G . > root@hobbit:/var# du -sh * > 4.0M backups > 124M cache > 40K games > 209M lib > 4.0K local > 0 lock > 1.8G log > 8.0K mail > 4.0K opt > 2.3M qmail > 0 run > 3.6M spool > 32K tmp
My reflex would be to use # du -h --max=1 /var/ or root@host:/var# du -h --max=1 which gives very similar results (albeit in a different order) without the use of the wildcard, but is of course extra typing. There might be other reasons why the use of the wildcard would be preferable; the one that springs to my mind is that I would expect it to skip dotfiles (and dot-directories) if any are present, but I also wouldn't expect there to be any in /var/. I use du's '--max=' option fairly frequently, compared to how often I use du at all. I find it useful, but your mileage may vary. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
