[LARTC] About "b" meaning "byte" and bit

[Andy Furniss]

DervishD wrote:
>     Hi Indunil :)
> 
>  * Indunil Jayasooriya <indunil75 at gmail.com> dixit:
>> On 8/31/07, DervishD <lartc at dervishd.net> wrote:
>>>     Hi all :)
>>>
>>>     I think that this issue has already been discussed on this list, but
>>> google didn't find anything interesting, so I'm bringing the subject
>>> again.
>>>
>>>     The output of "tc" uses "b" meaning "byte" and "bit" for "bit". The
>>> "official" suffixes for those units are "B" and "b", respectively, and
>>> on top of this, I'm not sure if "kbit" means "kilobit" or "kibibit" in
>>> "tc" output.
>>>
>> SEE below that was taken form  this URL
>>
>> http://luxik.cdi.cz/~devik/qos/htb/manual/userg.htm
>>
>>
>> Please read: tc tool (not only HTB) uses shortcuts to denote units of rate.
>> kbps means kilobytes and kbit means kilobits ! This is the most FAQ about tc
>> in linux.
> 
>     Yes, I already knew that, what I was asking is why SI units are not
> used and "shortcuts" are used instead: see my original message, I was
> not sure if kilobit was being used correctly (meaning 1000 bits) or if
> it was being used mistakenly for kibibit (1024 bits), and on top of
> that, why "b" was being used as byte when the SI prefix for byte is "B".

It got changed so kbit means 1000 when S.Hemminger took over maintenance 
IIRC.

> 
>     I mean, tc doesn't seem to follow any standard except maybe in
> kilobit (which should be then used as kb, not kbit).

I think changing kb and kbit would break too many existing scripts.

> 
>     Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado
>