snippetbashTip

numfmt — Convert numbers to and from human-readable strings. More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/

Submitted by: @import:tldr-pages·Mar 2, 2026·

Viewed 0 times

numberscommandfromandconvertclinumfmthuman

Problem

How to use the numfmt command: Convert numbers to and from human-readable strings. More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/numfmt-invocation.html>.

Solution

numfmt — Convert numbers to and from human-readable strings. More information: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/numfmt-invocation.html>.

Convert 1.5K (SI Units) to 1500:

numfmt --from si 1.5K

Convert 1500 to 1.5K (SI Units):

numfmt --to si 1500

Convert 1.5K (IEC Units) to 1536:

numfmt --from iec 1.5K

Use appropriate conversion based on the suffix:

numfmt --from auto {{1.5Ki}}

Convert 5th field (1-indexed) to IEC Units without converting header:

ls -l | numfmt --header=1 --field 5 --to iec

Convert to IEC units, pad with 5 characters, left aligned:

du {{[-s|--summarize]}} * | numfmt --to iec --format "%-5f"

Code Snippets

Convert 1.5K (SI Units) to 1500

numfmt --from si 1.5K

Convert 1500 to 1.5K (SI Units)

numfmt --to si 1500

Convert 1.5K (IEC Units) to 1536

numfmt --from iec 1.5K

Use appropriate conversion based on the suffix

numfmt --from auto {{1.5Ki}}

Convert 5th field (1-indexed) to IEC Units without converting header

ls -l | numfmt --header=1 --field 5 --to iec

Context

tldr-pages: common/numfmt

Revisions (0)

No revisions yet.