Human(3pm)						User Contributed Perl Documentation						Human(3pm)

NAME

       Number::Bytes::Human - Convert byte count to human readable format

SYNOPSIS

	 use Number::Bytes::Human qw(format_bytes);
	 $size = format_bytes(0); # '0'
	 $size = format_bytes(2*1024); # '2.0K'

	 $size = format_bytes(1_234_890, bs => 1000); # '1.3M'
	 $size = format_bytes(1E9, bs => 1000); # '1.0G'

	 # the OO way
	 $human = Number::Bytes::Human->new(bs => 1000, si => 1);
	 $size = $human->format(1E7); # '10MB'
	 $human->set_options(zero => '-');
	 $size = $human->format(0); # '-'

DESCRIPTION

       THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE: THE DOCUMENTATION AND THE CODE WILL SUFFER CHANGES SOME DAY (THANKS, GOD!).

       This module provides a formatter which turns byte counts to usual readable format, like '2.0K', '3.1G', '100B'.	It was inspired in the
       "-h" option of Unix utilities like "du", "df" and "ls" for "human-readable" output.

       From the FreeBSD man page of "df": http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=df

	 "Human-readable" output.  Use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte,
	 Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte and Petabyte in order to reduce the
	 number of digits to four or fewer using base 2 for sizes.

	 byte	   B
	 kilobyte  K = 2**10 B = 1024 B
	 megabyte  M = 2**20 B = 1024 * 1024 B
	 gigabyte  G = 2**30 B = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 B
	 terabyte  T = 2**40 B = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 B

	 petabyte  P = 2**50 B = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 B
	 exabyte   E = 2**60 B = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 B
	 zettabyte Z = 2**70 B = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 B
	 yottabyte Y = 2**80 B = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 B

       I have found this link to be quite useful:

	 http://www.t1shopper.com/tools/calculate/

       If you feel like a hard-drive manufacturer, you can start counting bytes by powers of 1000 (instead of the generous 1024).  Just use "bs =>
       1000".

       But if you are a floppy disk manufacturer and want to start counting in units of 1024000 (for your "1.44 MB" disks)?  Then use "bs =>
       1_024_000".

       If you feel like a purist academic, you can force the use of metric prefixes according to the Dec 1998 standard by the IEC. Never mind the
       units for base 1000 are "('B', 'kB', 'MB', 'GB', 'TB', 'PB', 'EB', 'ZB', 'YB')" and, even worse, the ones for base 1024 are "('B', 'KiB',
       'MiB', 'GiB', 'TiB', 'PiB', 'EiB', 'ZiB', 'YiB')" with the horrible names: bytes, kibibytes, mebibytes, etc.  All you have to do is to use
       "si => 1". Ain't that beautiful the SI system? Read about it:

	 http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

       You can try a pure Perl "ls -lh"-inspired command with the one-liner, er, two-liner:

	 $ perl -MNumber::Bytes::Human=format_bytes 
		-e 'printf "%5s %s
", format_bytes(-s), $_ for @ARGV' *

       Why to write such a module? Because if people can write such things in C, it can be written much easier in Perl and then reused,
       refactored, abused. And then, when it is much improved, some brave soul can port it back to C (if only for the warm feeling of painful
       programming).

   OBJECTS
       An alternative to the functional style of this module is the OO fashion. This is useful for avoiding the unnecessary parsing of the
       arguments over and over if you have to format lots of numbers

	 for (@sizes) {
	   my $fmt_size = format_bytes($_, @args);
	   ...
	 }

       versus

	 my $human = Number::Format::Bytes->new(@args);
	 for (@sizes) {
	   my $fmt_size = $human->format($_);
	   ...
	 }

       for TODO [TODO] MAKE IT JUST A MATTER OF STYLE: memoize _parse_args() $seed == undef

   FUNCTIONS
       format_bytes
	     $h_size = format_bytes($size, @options);

	   Turns a byte count (like 1230) to a readable format like '1.3K'.  You have a bunch of options to play with. See the section "OPTIONS"
	   to know the details.

   METHODS
       new
	     $h = Number::Bytes::Human->new(@options);

	   The constructor. For details on the arguments, see the section "OPTIONS".

       format
	     $h_size = $h->format($size);

	   Turns a byte count (like 1230) to a readable format like '1.3K'.  The statements

	     $h = Number::Bytes::Human->new(@options);
	     $h_size = $h->format($size);

	   are equivalent to "$h_size = format_bytes($size, @options)", with only one pass for the option arguments.

       set_options
	     $h->set_options(@options);

	   To alter the options of a "Number::Bytes::Human" object.  See "OPTIONS".

   OPTIONS
       BASE
	     block | base | block_size | bs => 1000 | 1024 | 1024000
	     base_1024 | block_1024 | 1024 => 1
	     base_1000 | block_1000 | 1000 => 1

	   The base to be used: 1024 (default), 1000 or 1024000.

	   Any other value throws an exception.

       SUFFIXES
	     suffixes => 1000 | 1024 | 1024000 | si_1000 | si_1024 | $arrayref

	   By default, the used suffixes stand for '', 'K', 'M', ...  for base 1024 and '', 'k', 'M', ... for base 1000 (which are indeed the
	   usual metric prefixes with implied unit as bytes, 'B'). For the weird 1024000 base, suffixes are '', 'M', 'T', etc.

       ZERO
	     zero => string | undef

	   The string 0 maps to ('0' by default). If "undef", the general case is used.  The string may contain '%S' in which case the suffix for
	   byte is used.

	     format_bytes(0, zero => '-') => '-'

       METRIC SYSTEM
	     si => 1

       ROUND
	     round_function => $coderef
	     round_style => 'ceil' | 'floor'

       TO_S
       QUIET
	     quiet => 1

	   Suppresses the warnings emitted. Currently, the only case is when the number is large than "$base**(@suffixes+1)".

   EXPORT
       It is alright to import "format_bytes", but nothing is exported by default.

DIAGNOSTICS

	 "unknown round style '$style'";

	 "invalid base: $block (should be 1024, 1000 or 1024000)";

	 "round function ($args{round_function}) should be a code ref";

	 "suffixes ($args{suffixes}) should be 1000, 1024, 1024000 or an array ref";

	 "negative numbers are not allowed" (??)

TO DO

       A function "parse_bytes"

	 parse_bytes($str, $options)

       which transforms '1k' to 1000, '1K' to 1024, '1MB' to 1E6, '1M' to 1024*1024, etc. (like gnu du).

	 $str =~ /^s*(d*.?d*)s*(S+)/ # $num $suffix

SEE ALSO

       lib/human.c and lib/human.h in GNU coreutils.

       The "_convert()" solution by COG in Filesys::DiskUsage.

BUGS

       Please report bugs via CPAN RT http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Number-Bytes-Human
       <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Number-Bytes-Human> or mailto://bug-Number-Bytes-Human@rt.cpan.org <mailto://bug-Number-Bytes-
       Human@rt.cpan.org>. I will not be able to close the bug as BestPractical ignore my claims that I cannot log in, but I will answer anyway.

AUTHOR

       Adriano R. Ferreira, <ferreira@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright (C) 2005-2007 by Adriano R. Ferreira

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

perl v5.14.2							    2007-04-05								Human(3pm)