bug#7042: df --help does not show `-m' option (original) (raw)

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From: Erik Auerswald
Subject: bug#7042: df --help does not show `-m' option
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:47:14 +0200
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17)

Hi,

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 09:56:57AM +0100, Pádraig Brady wrote:

On 16/09/10 23:34, Paul Eggert wrote: > If we're going to make incompatible changes, I suggest that > we solve the problem once and for all, by having "df" choose > the default blocksize dynamically, based on the size of the > output line describing the smallest disk. For example, where > "df" currently outputs this: > > Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on > /dev/sda1 11620338002 1437021 11618900981 1% /r/opt > /dev/sda2 20971520 1335871 19635650 7% /home/eggert > > "df" would notice that the smallest file system is between 1GB and 1TB, > so it would default to 1 GB blocks, as follows: > > Filesystem 1GB-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on > /dev/sda1 11900GB 2GB 11898GB 1% /r/opt > /dev/sda2 22GB 2GB 21GB 7% /home/eggert > > This is much more useful as an output format, because one can visually > see which file systems are larger by seeing how many digits are there. > Contrast this to the output of df --si: > > Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on > /dev/sda1 12T 1.5G 12T 1% /r/opt > /dev/sda2 22G 1.4G 21G 7% /home/eggert > > which is harder to visually parse that way.

Yes, especially 1.5G of the 12T disk used looks a lot like 1.5T of 1.5T used.

That would break lots of scripts I'd say (they should use -P, but many don't).

That's obvious (all three points, sadly).

In any case I don't think there is enough benefit in such a format change given the common wide range of device sizes attached to systems.

I like Paul's suggestion. Of course there are corner cases (mounting an older USB stick with e.g. 128MB). The base could be selected by the smallest mounted fixed disk.

Erik

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