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du, kilobytes


From: Dag Øien
Subject: du, kilobytes
Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 14:30:57 +0200

       This  page  describes  du  as  found in the fileutils-3.16
       package; other versions may differ slightly. Mail  correc-
       tions and additions to address@hidden and address@hidden
       and address@hidden .  Report bugs in  the  pro-
       gram to address@hidden

GNU fileutils 3.16         August 1998

Kilo is a SI prefix which always means 1000. Kilo never means anything else in any special context. Kilo is an international standard prefix which always means 1000.

In /bin/du on my slackware installation, kilobytes are used to describe blocks of 1024 bytes of data. This is wrong use of the prefix kilo.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (and other standards bodies) recommends the use of the prefix kibi when speaking about 2^10 rather than 10^3:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html


BSD/Darwin /usr/bin/du only mentions 1024 byte blocks, not kilobytes...


[)ag (/)ien




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