what does directory's size in Linux mean?

hi folks,
i'm new to linux.
directory's size in linux is not equal to total size of files present in it.
Then how is directory's size calculated.

Thanks,
Prabhu

 

In Linux everything is a file. Even an I/O device like monitor is a file and so each folder is a file to hold the files in it. Something like file of file and so it has some storage. My Fedora Core 4 gives each folder size as 4 KB. Probably to store the attributes and security data about the folder.

 

thanks for ur reply.