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Re: Using standardized SI prefixes



On Monday 11 June 2007 21:21, Joey Hess wrote:
> Bastian Venthur wrote:
> > What I don't believe is your 80 colums argument. Could
> > you please name a few of the *many* programs which would have to drop
> > information, precision, or significantly change their display to use the
> > "KiB" unit?
>
> iftop, top, ls, and df are the first few to come to mind.

Both ls and df produce very variable-width output where one extra "i" is no 
big deal. Besides, they don't use prefixes by default.

top uses "m" for mebi (and nothing for kibi), which is *completely* wrong - 
but on the other hand "m" can't be confused with "M" for mega-. The default 
layout seems to have enough space left, but, just to be sure, perhaps we can 
make an exception if it's well documented?

iftop uses powers of 2 except if logarithmic scale for the bar graphs is 
turned on. I think it would be better if it used powers of 10 throughout. 
There is a comment: /* This 1024 vs 1000 stuff is just plain evil */

None of these put a space between the number and the unit, as is proper, but 
that I don't think can be reasonably expected.

-- 
Magnus Holmgren        holmgren@lysator.liu.se
                       (No Cc of list mail needed, thanks)

  "Exim is better at being younger, whereas sendmail is better for 
   Scrabble (50 point bonus for clearing your rack)" -- Dave Evans

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