Pádraig, Philippe, Paul - Pádraig Brady [Tue, 9 Mar 2021 19:51:45 +0000]: > > > On 09/03/2021 12:58, Philippe Bénézech via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote: > > Dear maintener, > > > > I found a reproducible bug in df utility, installed in debian stable > > > > $ df --version |head -1 > > df (GNU coreutils) 8.30 > > $ cat /etc/debian_version > > 10.8 > > > > df displays G instead of GM as unit size for Gigabytes in power of 1000 > > (but the value is correct) > > This is not restricted to G > > > $ df -BGB /home > > Sys. de fichiers blocs de 1GB Utilisé Disponible Uti% Monté sur > > /dev/mapper/ssd2 421GB 355GB 45GB 89% /home > > > > $ df -H /home > > Sys. de fichiers Taille Utilisé Dispo Uti% Monté sur > > /dev/mapper/ssd2 421G 355G 45G 89% /home > >
> > In summary df -H is outputting with a concise single letter, which is > indistinguishable from that of df -h. I agree that's not ideal as the > output can't be interpreted without the command as context. I.e. it > restricts usage to direct command line usage. A possible change we could > make here would be to use GB, MB etc. if --si is specified. But also -h > and -H are not really useful outside of direct cli usage, I'm 50:50 on > changing this. > > This was originally discussed at https://bugs.gnu.org/18119 > It was brought up again more recently (Sept. 2020) here: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2020-09/msg00001.html The above post provided an extensive background and history of the issue, and a suggested patchset. > > Mentioned there is an option to use the new numfmt functionality > to provide more control and unambiguous output. > > BTW the fact that a B suffix implies SI units is awkward in the first > place, which I've documented the reasons for at: > > https://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/coreutils-gotchas.html#units > Agree 100% with your statements therein. (And your above document is referenced as [2] in the above-mentioned posting from September). Imo, it would be a Very Nice Thing if the program behavior of --si would be brought into accordance with your documentation above (and with Section 2.3 of coreutils.info, which says essentially the same things) rather than having two sets of mutually conflicting documentation co-existing within coreutils. The proposed patchset does that. See above posting for details. It's very long, but it lays out the entire story from start to finish, with all known back references that I'm aware of. - Glenn Golden