MySQL Bugs: #16059: the startup variables like "sort_buffer

Bug #16059	the startup variables like "sort_buffer_size" has an empty unit
Submitted:	29 Dec 2005 6:49	Modified:	29 Dec 2005 13:34
Reporter:	ming lu	Email Updates:
Status:	Not a Bug	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Administrator	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	1.1.2	OS:	Linux (red hat9)
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
Many startup variables like "sort_buffer_size"  has three units: ' ', 'K', 'M'.  The meanings of 'K' and 'M' are very clear, but the empty unit baffles me. I think many mysql users cannot understand it easily. Does it stand for 'Byte'?

How to repeat:
see the description

Suggested fix:
Why don't you use 'B' stand by Byte unit?

I dont think it's a bug. K and M - are just prefixes for unit. And unit is the same for all prefixes - its byte. So in the full form : bytes, Kilobytes,Megabytes. And it looks reasonable for me if we have short form as ' ', 'K' and 'M'

Probably we should change help files for reflect it more clear. Please let me know what you think.

How about marking them as 'B', 'KB' and 'MB' ?  
Or you can modify the reference manual to clarify it.

Current way (no _suffix_ for values in bytes, K and M for kilobytes and megabytes) is consistent with other means to set variables. Please, read http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/program-variables.html:

"Many MySQL programs have internal variables that can be set at runtime. Program variables are set the same way as any other long option that takes a value. For example, mysql has a max_allowed_packet variable that controls the maximum size of its communication buffer. To set the max_allowed_packet variable for mysql to a value of 16MB, use either of the following commands:

shell> mysql --max_allowed_packet=16777216
shell> mysql --max_allowed_packet=16M

The first command specifies the value in bytes. The second specifies the value in megabytes. Variable values can have a suffix of K, M, or G (either uppercase or lowercase) to indicate units of kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes."

So, it is not a bug, and there is no need to mention bytes (B) explicitely - they are used by default for all "sizes".