Re: ulimit builtin block size

[Bob Proulx]

Chet Ramey wrote:
> I've received a bug report noting that the `block size' the ulimit builtin
> is using (the multiplier applied to the -f and -c options) is 1024, where
> the POSIX standard and historical sh usage specify 512.
> 
> I'm considering changing the default block size for the next version.  Just
> a heads-up to watch for.  Any change will be prominently noted in the NEWS
> and CHANGES files, but distribution end users don't always see those.

I don't feel strongly about the block size reported by ulimit but this
appears to be one of those cases where GNU usage should be allowed to
improve upon the standard.  Using 512 byte blocks may have been the
original size but 1k byte blocks has generally been accepted as being
much more useful in general.

GNU coreutils also has several utilities that use a blocksize.  There
it was decided to continue to use a 1k blocksize and only revert to a
512 byte blocksize when POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.  So far there has not
been any overwhelming complaints using that paradigm.

  info coreutils 'Block size'

Bob