bug#13216: head(1) man page not talking about kilobytes

[Pádraig Brady]

On 12/17/2012 11:37 PM, address@hidden wrote:
> Man you guys are bananas using "K" here:

:)

>         -c, --bytes=[-]K
>                print the first K bytes of each  file;  with  the  leading  `-',
>                print all but the last K bytes of each file
>
> Why can't you use "X" etc. etc.?

It used to be 'N' which was confusing with the -n option:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2009-05/threads.html#00073
So we changed to 'K' with slight reservations as it was better.

> It took 15 minutes for me to figure out that you weren't talking about
> kilobytes. Yes one only has to read down further. But kindly fix it anyway.

Changing to 'X' or a generic word like 'VAL' is a possibility.

thanks,
Pádraig