Listing file and folder sizes

Problem

You want to print the sizes of all files and folders in the current folder from largest to smallest

Solution

We simply run du command on each file and folder in the current folder then sort them using sort

    ls -A | awk '{system("du -sm \""$0"\"")}'| sort -nr | head

To list only folders

    ls -Al \
    | egrep '^d' \
    | awk '{printf $9; for (x=10; x <= NF; x  ) {printf " "$x;}; print ""}' \
    | awk '{system("du -sh \""$0"\"")}'

To list only files

    ls -Al | egrep -v '^d' \
    | awk '{printf $9; for (x=10; x <= NF; x  ){printf " "$x;}; print ""}' \
    | awk '{system("du -sh \""$0"\"")}'

References

• http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.shell/browse_thread/thread/aebcbd0591714584/5e496ed7cfbe6eb1
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xargs
• http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-list-just-directories-or-directory-names/