GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 71003
file size units should use SI binary standard
Last modified: 2008-09-26 15:18:35 UTC
When I view my home directory in Nautilus, file sizes are shown as "59.9 K". Use of "K" as a unit is falling out of common use; recent best practise suggests this should be "59.9 KB". Unfortunately, both previous and recent practise are ambiguous as to whether this means 59.9 x 1000 bytes or 59.9 x 1024 bytes (it should, in fact mean 59.9 x 1000 bytes). A standard was recently constructed that avoids this confusion. It can be seen here: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html It would suggest KiB, MiB, and so on where 1024 bytes, 1048576 bytes, and so on are intended. Replace occurences of K, MB, GB, and so on with KiB, MiB, GiB where appropriate (presumably everywhere, unless referring to 1000 bytes, 1000000 bytes, and so on).
This is a good suggestion. The SI binary standard is a nice solution to a thorny problem. I first learned about it last year when I was looking into this issue. However, it's not urgent to change this. Further, the code to format file sizes is in gnome-vfs.
Agree that this is minor. I'm not the most knowledgeable guy in the world, but I've never heard of this before, nor have I ever seen any app (Windows, Mac, or Linux) that used it. So saying that traditional standards are 'falling out of use' may be a bit inaccurate yet.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 127175 ***