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With du -bh I think I get the apparent size in human readable format:
# du -bh
295K ./test
However, I would expect the same from du -hb, but I get something else:
# du -hb
301926 ./test
I believe this is the same output as just du -b would give me.
# du --version
du (GNU coreutils) 7.4
From the man page for du:
-b, --bytes
equivalent to '--apparent-size --block-size=1'
-h, --human-readable
print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)
The -h switch will display the output using units, blocks have no units, so these 2 switches aren't suppose to be used together!
NOTE: The command du will therefore display its output based on which ever switch occurs last in the command line arguments.
b switch examples
$ du -hb XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
13950768 XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
$ du -b XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
13950768 XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
$ du -h -b XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
13950768 XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
h switch examples
$ du -bh XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
14M XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
$ du -h XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
14M XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
$ du -b -h XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
14M XnConvert.x86_64.rpm
-b as a shorthand for --apparent-size.
The -b (show in bytes) and -h (show in a human readable way) options are contradictory.
The last one is the one really used by du.
