Why does os.path.getsize() return a negative number for a 10gb file?

Question

I am using the function os.path.getsize() which gives the size of the file in bytes.

As my one file size is 10gb it give me size in negative(bytes).

Answer 1

Looks like an overflow of 32-bit int used for size which is limited to 4GB. This may be a bug (or even a missing compilation flag) in your particular version of Python. I just tried it in a 32-bit Linux box, using python 2.4 and 2.6; both give correct results on files bigger than 4GB.

Try upgrading your Python; the fix is probably a minor version away.