Re: parted: Size column in "parted print" desired

[Andrew Clausen]

On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 06:00:23PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> The pgi package creates installers with a text-mode interface
> that uses parted for partitioning.  We here at Progeny thought
> would be nice if parted's "print" function would report the size
> of each partition along with the other information it displays.
> 
> We thought it would be even nicer if the reported size was made
> "human-readable" by reporting the size in the most appropriate
> units: terabytes, gigabytes, megabytes, or kilobytes.

Hmmm, I'm not sure what the best solution is here...
Why should start and end be written any differently?

I think we need a big units "overhaul".

Food for thought:
 * what if the user prefers percentages?
 * what if shell scripts want to parse the output?
 * users might want to type in the same units as presented.
It seems a bit "unfair" (read: counter-intuitive) for parted to talk
to the user in a way that's different from the way the user can talk
back.
 * i18n issues?

Basically: I want a well-thought out solution that doesn't hurt
anyone badly.  It's on the todo... I was planning to do it myself
for 1.7.x (possibly back-porting to 1.6.x), but I wouldn't complain
if someone else did it...

Thanks,
Andrew