From 766e407cc3e1dd84620c3eda371b5de88a15e6a1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: William Dillon <wmdillon@me.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2026 19:36:33 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] additional output formats

---
 cli/main.go | 48 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------
 1 file changed, 34 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)

diff --git a/cli/main.go b/cli/main.go
index aff3aaa..db95402 100644
--- a/cli/main.go
+++ b/cli/main.go
@@ -8,34 +8,54 @@ import (
 	"math"
 	"os"
 	"strconv"
+	"strings"
 	"time"
 )
 
-func FormatOutput(pause time.Duration, ns bool) string {
-	switch ns {
-	case true:
-		return strconv.FormatInt(pause.Nanoseconds(), 10)
+func FormatOutput(pause time.Duration, format string) string {
+	var results string
+	switch strings.ToLower(format) {
+	case "string":
+		results = pause.String()
+	case "s":
+		results = fmt.Sprintf("%f", pause.Seconds())
+	case "ms":
+		results = strconv.FormatInt(pause.Milliseconds(), 10)
+	case "us", "µs":
+		results = strconv.FormatInt(pause.Microseconds(), 10)
+	case "ns":
+		results = strconv.FormatInt(pause.Nanoseconds(), 10)
 	default:
-		return pause.String()
+		fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "warning: unknown format %q - using 'string'\n", format)
+		results = pause.String()
 	}
+	return results
 }
 
+type OutputFormat string
+
+const (
+	SECONDS      OutputFormat = "s"
+	MILLISECONDS OutputFormat = "ms"
+	MICROSECONDS OutputFormat = "us"
+)
+
 func main() {
 	start := time.Now()
 	var (
-		doPanic           bool
-		doSleep           bool
-		multiplier        time.Duration
-		jitter            time.Duration
-		iteration         int64
-		nanosecondsOutput bool
+		doPanic      bool
+		doSleep      bool
+		multiplier   time.Duration
+		jitter       time.Duration
+		iteration    int64
+		outputformat string
 	)
 	flag.BoolVar(&doPanic, "panic", false, "panic instead of overflowing values (default returns the max value instead of overflowing).")
 	flag.BoolVar(&doSleep, "sleep", false, "sleep for the resulting duration after calculating it. prints the run duration of the program instead of the calculated pause duration.")
 	flag.DurationVar(&multiplier, "multiplier", time.Millisecond, "pause multiplier.")
 	flag.DurationVar(&jitter, "jitter", 0, "jitter boundary. pause duration is randomly selected in the range of resultDuration+-jitter.")
 	flag.Int64Var(&iteration, "iteration", 1, "iteration to use for calculating pause time.")
-	flag.BoolVar(&nanosecondsOutput, "ns", false, "outputs int64 nanoseconds instead of string.")
+	flag.StringVar(&outputformat, "format", "string", "output format - s, ms, us, µs, ns, string")
 	flag.Parse()
 
 	if jitter < 0 {
@@ -62,9 +82,9 @@ func main() {
 	switch doSleep {
 	case true:
 		<-backoff.After(context.Background())
-		response = FormatOutput(time.Since(start), nanosecondsOutput)
+		response = FormatOutput(time.Since(start), outputformat)
 	default:
-		response = FormatOutput(backoff.Next(), nanosecondsOutput)
+		response = FormatOutput(backoff.Next(), outputformat)
 	}
 	fmt.Println(response)