MemoryUnit

A MemoryUnit represents a quantity of bytes.

A MemoryUnit can be created by adding a unit suffix to an integer (e.g. 1.GB), or by explicitly casting to MemoryUnit:

// integer with suffix
oneMegabyte = 1.MB

// integer value (bytes)
oneKilobyte = 1024 as MemoryUnit

// string value
oneGigabyte = '1 GB' as MemoryUnit

The following suffixes are available:

Unit	Description
B	Bytes
KB	Kilobytes
MB	Megabytes
GB	Gigabytes
TB	Terabytes
PB	Petabytes
EB	Exabytes
ZB	Zettabytes

note

Technically speaking, a kilobyte is equal to 1000 bytes, whereas 1024 bytes is called a "kibibyte" and abbreviated as "KiB", and so on for the other units. In practice, however, kilobyte is commonly understood to mean 1024 bytes, and Nextflow follows this convention in its implementation as well as this documentation.

Memory units can be compared like numbers, and they support basic arithmetic operations:

a = 1.GB
b = 2.GB

assert a < b
assert a + a == b
assert b - a == a
assert a * 2 == b
assert b / 2 == a

The following methods are available for a MemoryUnit object:

toBytes() -> Integer

Get the memory value in bytes (B).

toGiga() -> Integer

Get the memory value in gigabytes (rounded down), where 1 GB = 1024 MB.

toKilo() -> Integer

Get the memory value in kilobytes (rounded down), where 1 KB = 1024 B.

toMega() -> Integer

Get the memory value in megabytes (rounded down), where 1 MB = 1024 KB.

toUnit( unit: String ) -> Integer

Get the memory value in terms of a given unit (rounded down). The unit can be one of: 'B', 'KB', 'MB', 'GB', 'TB', 'PB', 'EB', 'ZB'.

note

These methods are also available as getBytes(), getGiga(), getKilo(), and getMega().