Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB in Configure.help

H. Peter Anvin
2002-03-18T18:25:11Z

Followup to: <Pine.LNX.3.95.1020318112042.740A-100000@chaos.analogic.com>
By author: "Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> Is it a standard or is it something in-process? The reason I ask is
> that neither KB nor KiB can possibly be correct.
>
> According to the standards, where capitalization is used:
> (1) For a proper name.
> (2) To differentiate between otherwise identical symbols.
>

This is obviously untrue for prefixes. Consider the prefix T (10^12),
which has no lower-case equivalent.

The unit here is B, which does conflict with the unit bel, but is
widely used to mean byte in computer contexts.

I don't like the pronunciations used in the new standard, but I think
using Ki, Mi, Gi, ... at least in writing is a good thing, to
disambiguate between binary and decimal powers. I just read them as
"binary kilobytes" etc if I need to be clear.

-hpa
--
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt <amsp@zytor.com>