Ivan Jager <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, 14 Jun 2007, Ben Finney wrote: > > Since we *can* give a perfectly precise quantity of bytes and > > other digital phenomena, and often do, this is even more reason to > > use the precise meaning of the units for those quantities. > > Ok, so this applies to dd and what else?
It applies to any software that refers to quantities that use these units. Pick a unit for the quantity, base-10 or base-2, and use its precise meaning and the precise term for it. > I thought this argument was mostly about measured sizes anyways, > such as what you would get from ls -lh, df -h, du -h, or their GUI > equivalents. These are all rounded. Any time the software says "GB" when the quantity was actually calculated in 2^30, or says "GiB" when the quantity was actually calculated in 10^9, the units are mismatched. Whether the quantity was rounded is irrelevant to this fact. > While 10^9 <> 2**30, I find the later to be a much more useful > number on a computer. Nothing in this proposal speaks against using 2^30 bytes as a unit of measure. The only thing wrong would be to refer to the unit as "GB", because that isn't 2^30 bytes. The only unambiguous standard abbreviation for that unit is "GiB". -- \ "Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few | `\ in pursuit of the goal." -- Friedrich Nietzsche | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]