python - os.path.getsize Returns Incorrect Value?

Question

def size_of_dir(dirname):
    print("Size of directory: ")
    print(os.path.getsize(dirname))

is the code in question. dirname is a directory with 130 files of about 1kb each. When I call this function, it returns 4624, which is NOT the size of the directory...why is this?

Answer 1

This value (4624B) represents the size of the file that describes that directory. Directories are described as inodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode) that hold information about the files and directories it contains.

To get the number of files/subdirectories inside that path, use:

len(os.listdir(dirname))

To get the total amount of data, you could use the code in this question, that is (as @linker posted)

 sum([os.path.getsize(f) for f in os.listdir('.') if os.path.isfile(f)]).