Subject: Re: [PATCH 2] count-objects: add human-readable size option

From: Marcus Griep <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:26:49 -0400

Petr Baudis wrote:
> Are you aware of progress.c:throughput_string()? It would make sense to
> use the same code in both instances.

I was not. After reviewing it, it is limited to its purposes (who's got
transfer speeds in TiB/s?), but consolidating the human-readable-ness is
a good idea.

> I'd prefer you to keep using binary units instead of the ambiguous
> prefixes, since we should keep our output consistent and I believe they
> usually end up to be the least confusing choice. (Otherwise, don't you
> want to use "bkM" instead of "BKM"? I never really know.)

In general, "b" would be supplied as a part of the suffix, so that is no
longer in the prefix list.  The distinction comes with kilo vs. kibi.  In
an earlier email reply, I mentioned a flag to denote SI versus binary
periods.  In common nomenclature, Kilo (1000) is designated 'k', while
Kibi (1024) is designated 'K' (the 'i' after the 'K' is supplied by the
suffix if desired).  Thus, if the user wants binary, they'll get the capital
'K', and if they want SI, they'll get the lowercase 'k'.

Sound reasonable?

-- 
Marcus Griep
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