This was many times discussed, we need dummy prefix placeholder to display value as is (without prefix itself). For example count of "something" is 19766 and it should be displayed without any prefixes.
It is need for GUI and server notification too. Would be nice to introduce this possibility in this issue.

"dummy unit" would be quite bad usability wise. i'd prefer a checkbox on the item level that would never apply the multiplier (i'm sure it's mentioned in some other issue somewhere )

Agreed we need this, and also some fixes so we don't have KKB on some units; we've adjusted hard-coding, but still messy.

When implementing, please check ZBX-5024

I agree with richlv, the new check box in item configuration form is more suitable than special prefix in Units field.

The dummy unit is relatively easy to get going, by just making that unit list customizable and relying on the existing code. (That's what I do when I manually add 'lic', for licenses, to the func.inc.php file.)

The check box is certainly the cleaner implementation but will require more modifications across the web interface (item form, graph generation, ...).

I've written a patch for Zabbix 2.0.6 that does something similar. This patch allows you to prevent "unit processing" by prefixing the unit value with a "!" (So, for example, you could use "!days" for the unit, and get "1234 days", instead of "1.23 kdays") Also, you can specify the unit precision for floating point numbers: "![2]deg" would give you "123.45 deg" instead of "123 deg" or "123.450000 deg" as you would get by simply adding "deg" to the blacklist.

Personally, I feel that having some sort of escape character is by far the easiest solution. It requires no schema changes, and the patch is really minimal.

Patch to allow bypassing of unit processing by prefixing the unit with a "!"

Additionally, "![num]" allows specifying floating point precision.

Just facing the same issue with one custom userparameter, I prefer if this setup will be in the configuration of the item on the GUI, so per item, in my case I want to monitor the puppet conf version but that does not make to much sense in Gigs.
So plus one vote from ME

I really like to see this in upcoming releases.
I've modified the patch from @jdccdevel to work with zabbix 2.2.6 (there were just some variables replacd by arrays).

UnitEscape226.patch

blacklist was initially implemented in ZBX-2295

Appropriate API method will be useful too

ZBXNEXT-3347 asks specifically for microseconds.

Implemented in pre-4.0.0alpha2, revision76317.

If unit is prefixed with character '!', then no unit prefixes (KMGT) will be applied to item values. It affects displaying of values in front-end as well as server side expansion of macros for alerting.

A few examples:

1024 B -> 1 KB
1024 !B -> 1024 B
61 s -> 1m 1s
61 !s -> 61 s
0 uptime -> 00:00:00
0 !uptime -> 0 uptime
0 ! -> 0
0 !! -> 0 !

It's good that its finally implemented, but so not obvious. IMHO,either a floating hint should be provided in the item configuration screen or this blacklisting moved to the separate checkbox such as 'do not apply unit prefixes'.

awesome news, this will make many users happy - and great to see it implemented in such a flexible way.

Vitaly, it being non-obvious does not seem to be such a big hurdle. for example, frequency units are not exposed in the ui, macros in actions, item or trigger config and so on. having a small icon next to each field that would explain all this would be great, but that's a separate thing, tracked at ZBXNEXT-130 .

By the way, the default blacklist of units should not be used anymore (it still works, but deprecated), instead it must be replaced by !%, !ms, !rpm, etc. The standard templates should be reviewed at some point as well.

Updated documentation:

• What's new
• Upgrade notes
• Item configuration

sasha CLOSED

(1) [F] No translation strings changed

CLOSED

In documentation I would replace "Unit blacklisting" with something more comprehensible in the user context, like "Automatic multiplier prefix" or "Preventing multiplier prefix".

Thanks for the feedback on documentation. The title has been changed to "Preventing unit conversion flexibly".

sasha Thanks! CLOSED

a new issue to track the default template changes might be useful