Comments on: How to Format Numbers as File Sizes

By: Roman Ženka

Roman Ženka — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 14:47:00 +0000

In reply to Johan Svartklint. As soon as it is size of files or RAM, the expectation is to use 1024 and not 1000. So you may display lowercase kB but nobody really does that in this context, thus confusion. If you put the KiB in, that should be 100% clear and probably the best option.

By: Johan Svartklint

Johan Svartklint — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 10:33:00 +0000

No, I would argue that a kilobyte (kB) is still 1000 bytes. 1024 bytes is 1 kibibyte (KiB). The ISO/IEC 80000 lists both decimal and binary prefixes this way. However, due to JEDEC messing everything up by sanctioning the incorrect usage of decimal prefixes to designate binary multiples – everything is a bit of a mess. For example, Windows reports binary multiples using JEDEC prefixes (K, M, G) instead of the “more correct” (in the sense that SI is the single most internationally recognized system of units) binary prefix (Ki, Mi, Gi) set by SI and the IEC, while OS X uses the SI binary prefixes. However, in some versions Windows actually correctly uses the SI binary prefix when listing RAM, but not storage space. So I get what you mean, but I still feel the need to argue that if you want to be pedandic, and it seems like that was your whole point, then “one kilobyte with a capital K” is actually a kibibyte – written “Ki”, not “K”. Sure, you’re welcome to use the JEDEC system, but they’re not really the authority on prefixes and system of units whatever they want people to think. ^^

By: Scott DeLuzio

Scott DeLuzio — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 16:19:00 +0000

In reply to Dennis Fluttershy. Yes Dennis, this is true. Thank you for clarifying. I will update the article to clarify that you can use thousand markers or decimal points other than what was presented.

By: Dennis Fluttershy

Dennis Fluttershy — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 09:12:00 +0000

This is for the American format, for those who uses different locales, replace all , with your thousand marker (eg space), and replace . with your decimal point (eg comma).

I would show an example, but Disqus doesn’t allow me to post repeated spaces.

By: Dennis Fluttershy

Dennis Fluttershy — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 09:10:00 +0000

This is for the American format,
for those who use space as a thousand marker, and comma as a decimal marker

[<1000000]0,00 " KB";[<1000000000]0,00 " MB";0,00 " GB"