cvs commit: src/bin/ps keyword.c

[Bruce Evans]

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005, M. Warner Losh wrote:

> In message: <20050207081054.GA57554 at cirb503493.alcatel.com.au>
>             Peter Jeremy <PeterJeremy at optushome.com.au> writes:
> : On Sun, 2005-Feb-06 19:45:16 +0100, Pawel Jakub Dawidek wrote:
> : >On Sun, Feb 06, 2005 at 04:34:49PM +0000, Christian S.J. Peron wrote:
> : >+>   Since it is not un-common for a process's resident set size (rss)
> : >+>   to exceed 10 megabytes in size (especially in X), bump the max
> : >+>   column width from 4 bytes to 5. This will make the ps auxw output
> : >+>   uniform again when a process's rss exceeds 10 megs.
> : >
> : >Maybe we can use humanize_number(3) here?
> :
> : Please ensure that if you do use humanize_number(3), there is a way of
> : getting rss and vsz values in fixed units.  Tru64 switches between MB
> : and GB is ps output (which can't be disabled).  I regularly need to
> : look at processes by size and it's very annoying to have 2.5GB and
> : 2.5MB processes mixed together.
>
> There are also people that use ps to get a feel for the size of
                 ^^^^^^
> processes and if they appear to be growing or not.  Jumping to the
> next larger size is great for humans, but lousy for programs.  It
                                ^^^^^^
> would also tend to obsure the 'noise' in the number, the very thing
> that our scripts are interested in.

I agree that jumping to the next size is only great for those humans
who are not people.  I disagree that it is lousy for programs.

humanize_number() basically gives numbers in scientific notation.  This
is great for programs and in limited domains where the range of numbers
is very large, but few humans think in it.

humanize_number() should be named something like hidefy_number(), and
df's -h flag should be described as giving hideous or human-unreadable
output.

The point about "noise" in the output is good.  If apply to affect df
so much.  It applies to programs that periodically repeat output like
iostat(1) more.

Bruce