stat(1) is not standardized and different implementations have their own
(conflicting) flags for querying the size of a file.
ls(1) provides the same information (value of st.st_size) in the 5th
column, except when the file is a character or block device. This output
is standardized[0]. The -n option turns on -l, which writes lines
formatted like
"%s %u %s %s %u %s %s\n", <file mode>, <number of links>,
<owner name>, <group name>, <size>, <date and time>,
<pathname>
but instead of writing the <owner name> and <group name>, it writes the
numeric owner and group IDs (this avoids /etc/passwd and /etc/group
lookups as well as potential field splitting issues).
The <size> field is specified as "the value that would be returned for
the file in the st_size field of struct stat".
To avoid duplicating logic in several locations in the tree, create
scripts/file-size.sh and update callers to use that instead of stat(1).
[0] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/ls.html#tag_20_73_10
Signed-off-by: Michael Forney <forney@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@socionext.com>
Michael Forney