#293587 df: -m option undocumented

Package:
coreutils
Source:
coreutils
Description:
GNU core utilities
Submitter:
KELEMEN Peter
Date:
2011-12-07 21:06:06 UTC
Severity:
minor
#293587#5
Date:
2005-02-04 15:28:12 UTC
From:
To:
SSIA, the -m option is undocumented.
#293587#16
Date:
2011-12-07 21:03:19 UTC
From:
To:
KELEMEN Peter wrote:

After merging a duplicate of this report I see that this ticket didn't
display any response even though there was one sent.  That was due to
the response being added in a control message without CC'ing the bug
ticket.  Therefore I am adding the same response here that I sent to
the duplicate so that this information will be plainly visible in the
lead ticket without needing to search and read the duplicate.

The df -m, and du -m options are now obsolescent.  The NEWS file
contains this information:

[4.1.5]
* The following options are now obsolescent, as their names are
  incompatible with IEC 60027-2:
   df, du: -m or --megabytes (use -BM or --block-size=1M)
   df, du, ls: --kilobytes (use --block-size=1K)

The version history shows:

  commit d1772031eefaec26e15bd526f6bd6c959ce059b6
  Author: Jim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>
  Date:   Fri Dec 21 11:35:54 2001 +0000

      (BLOCK_SIZE_OPTION): Remove; no longer needed now that we have
      'B'.
      (long_options, usage, main): Add -B.
      (usage): Deprecate --kilobytes, -m, --megabytes.
      Document size suffixes.

The documentation was removed prior to removing the option itself.

Because this was an intentional change I do not believe it will be
"fixed" by documenting it.  Fixing it would mean completely removing
the option and completing the transition.

Bob