[linux-lvm] Powers of 1024 units in man pages

[André Gillibert]

Hello.
I'm new to this mailing list, but didn't found any FAQ or netiquette guidelines applying to this list. I'm sorry if I break a rule.

A patch that improves man pages of LVM2 command line tools is attached to this message:
1) Making it clear what units are used (mebibytes, etc.).
2) Specifying where sizes are rounded up or down to a multiple of the extent size.
3) Fixing an error in pvdisplay.8.in which said, with the -c option, physical volume size is output in kilobytes while it is output in sectors.

This patch doesn't modify any source code file (.h or .c). It's a simple documentation fix.

When doing critical operations such as lvreduce(8), I don't care the programs use SI or powers of 1024 as far as I can easily know exactly how many bytes it'll get. So, I think fixing man pages is important.
(As a LVM2 user, the current workaround is to use -l number_of_extents)

The SI (1k=1000) vs binary (1k=1024) units issue has been reported 4 years ago:
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=306200>
and has been discussed in July 2009:
<https://www.redhat.com/archives/linux-lvm/2009-June/msg00073.html>
And a patch has been proposed. Unfortunately, this patch functionally modifies the LVM command line tools, and does so in a way that may silently break scripts, which probably explain why it hasn't been included yet.

Fixing the source code to make it use SI units, in my eyes, is not a short term concern, but fixing man pages is one.

Not being a native english speaker, my patch may contain language glitches. Improvements and discussion is welcome.
To compute these data, I made a few tests on small loop-backs volumes. I think everything I state is true, but, if you find an error, please, fix it.

Thank you.

-- 
Sincerely.
André Gillibert
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