"ls -h -l" returns 255GB, while "ls -l" returns 272 gigabytes

[Jameson C. Burt]

Following are responses from "ls" on a file, partition.img,
which is a partition image I created using "dd".
While being created, as this file got large, 
the target partition disappeared until I rebooted 
(a Linux problem, surely, 
and I mention this only for the full context of the following "ls" result).
Upon rebooting, the resulting filesize listed with "ls" is inconsistent,
   ls -h -l partition.img
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 255G 2006-10-24 23:10 partition.img
   ls  -l partition.img
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 272751509504 2006-10-24 23:10 partition.img
Presuming the filesize to be 272,751,509,504, 
then  "ls -h -l" should return
   272G  not  255G
Perl affirms (although it might use the same underlying OS command) the 272G 
value,
   perl -e  'print -s "partition.img", "\n"'
      272751509504
One would expect that both  "ls -h -l"  and  "ls -l"  use the same
underlying number, merely printing diffently,
so I'm surprised to see different numbers with and without "-h".

Possibly, the value 255G represents an acutal filesize of 256GB,
a possible limit from some source, in which case 272G could be wrong.


Following are correct responses from "ls" on a file I created of exactly 2.2 GB
(dd  if=/dev/zero  of=zero-test  bs=1000  count=2200000),
   ls -l  zero-test
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2200000000 2006-10-25 09:51 zero-test
   ls -h -l  zero-test
      -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.1G 2006-10-25 09:51 zero-test
These results are consistent, although one might prefer "ls -h -l"  to
give 2.2G rather than 2.1G.

The "ls" version from  "ls --version" is
   ls (GNU coreutils) 5.97
I run Debian Linux (version etch), up-to-date on all packages thru 10/23/2006.


--Jim Burt