On Tue, 24 Mar 1998, Stan Sieler wrote:

> John writes:
> > In our programs the "K" or other alpha character within the field would
> > cause an error.  Thus, existing code would error out, preventing a
>
> In some programs, however, it would be silently ignored.
>
> Further, a trailing "K" (in the units column) is easy to overlook.
> (Also, is "K" 1000 or 1024?)

I'd prefer 1024.  BTW, I'm curious how others treat "K" vs. "k".  Here
the policy is "K" means 1024 and "k" means 1000.  Do others use this scheme?

> I.e, it's hard to quickly determine which is the biggest file:
>
>  FILENAME  CODE  ------------LOGICAL RECORD-----------   ----SPACE----
>                    SIZE  TYP        EOF      LIMIT R/B   SECTORS #X MX
>
>  NEWPSDSC          128@  FB      12274K     18643K   1   18643K  1  1
>  NEWPSDSM         3934B  VA        1084     234344   1 12928292  1  *
>  REALBIG          3934B  VA        1084     234344   1  515899K  1  *
>
> (numbers made up)
>
>
> That's why I suggest:
>
>  FILENAME  CODE  ------------LOGICAL RECORD-----------   ----SPACE----
>                    SIZE  TYP        EOF      LIMIT R/B   SECTORS #X MX
>
>  NEWPSDSC          128@  FB      12274K     18643K   1 MB: 4549  1  1
>  NEWPSDSM         3934B  VA        1084     234344   1 12928292  1  *
>  REALBIG          3934B  VA        1084     234344   1 GB:  123  1  *
>
> By putting the "MB/GB/TB" in the left most colum (where the 10-millions
> digit goes), we break existing code (just as well as "********").
>
> Yet, the value is clearly readable by users.  (Indeed, you can forsee
> an option that would say "hey, never use 8 digits for sectors... if the
> file is larger than 99999 sectors, switch to MBs...that
> would cause NEWPSDSM above to display as "MB: 3156", which is a lot
> more intuitive than "12928292".
>
> SS

An indicator in the most significant digit column would be fine, but I'm
not sure I'd agree with using MB, GB, and TB as the column heading is
"SECTORS" and not "BYTES".  And are those MB 1,000,000 bytes or 1,048,576
bytes?  I guess that while sectors are an odd unit of measure, I'd rather
be consistent and have all values in sectors.

John
--------------------------------------------------------------
John Korb                            email: [log in to unmask]
Innovative Software Solutions, Inc.

The thoughts, comments, and opinions expressed herein are mine
and do not reflect those of my employer(s), or anyone else.