Re: humanize_number(3) for dd(1) summary?

[Matthew Mondor <mm_lists%pulsar-zone.net@localhost>]

On Sat, 04 Dec 2010 04:04:10 +0100
Jean-Yves Migeon <jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost> wrote:

> On 04.12.2010 03:34, der Mouse wrote:
> >> I can mimic what ls(1), df(1), du(1), ... do and add a "-h" flag to
> >> have a "human readable" summary.
> > 
> > I think adding "-"-prefixed flags to dd would be very very wrong.
> 
> I agree.
> 
> > If you really want to make this controllable but don't like conv=, I'd
> > add something like a flag= argument which works like conv= but controls
> > non-conversion behaviour.
> > 
> > But I'm not sure conv= is wrong.  It has noerror and notrunc already,
> > which while related to data copying are not quite conversions in the
> > usual sense....
> 
> I can't really find prior art; the only notable exception being GNU
> dd(1) [1].
> 
> conv=human looks convenient, but it looks a bit too generic to me. And
> adding just a flag= or display= argument for that is IMHO overkill.

The only problem I see is that scripts won't need human output (and
don't expect it), but that humans have to type a number of extra
characters to obtain that behaviour, and they're the ones typing
commands in manually.  At least -h would be short to add.

But would it make sense if dd detected interactive use (i.e. using
isatty on stderr) and enabled the human display format by default then?

Thanks,
-- 
Matt