diff --git a/common.cpp b/common.cpp
index 6564a7ac5..0cab244db 100644
--- a/common.cpp
+++ b/common.cpp
@@ -1935,7 +1935,50 @@ void sb_format_size( string_buffer_t *sb,
 			sz /= 1024;
 			
 		}
-	}		
+	}	
+}
+
+wcstring format_size(long long sz)
+{
+    wcstring result;
+	const wchar_t *sz_name[]=
+		{
+			L"kB", L"MB", L"GB", L"TB", L"PB", L"EB", L"ZB", L"YB", 0
+		};
+
+	if( sz < 0 )
+	{
+		result.append( L"unknown" );
+	}
+	else if( sz < 1 )
+	{
+		result.append( _( L"empty" ) );
+	}
+	else if( sz < 1024 )
+	{
+		result.append(format_string( L"%lldB", sz ));
+	}
+	else
+	{
+		int i;
+		
+		for( i=0; sz_name[i]; i++ )
+		{
+			if( sz < (1024*1024) || !sz_name[i+1] )
+			{
+				int isz = sz/1024;
+				if( isz > 9 )
+					result.append( format_string( L"%d%ls", isz, sz_name[i] ));
+				else
+					result.append( format_string( L"%.1f%ls", (double)sz/1024, sz_name[i] ));
+				break;
+			}
+			sz /= 1024;
+			
+		}
+	}
+    
+    return result;
 }
 
 double timef()
diff --git a/common.h b/common.h
index 6aed5efcc..5f6936b07 100644
--- a/common.h
+++ b/common.h
@@ -584,8 +584,8 @@ void bugreport();
 /**
    Format the specified size (in bytes, kilobytes, etc.) into the specified stringbuffer.
 */
-void sb_format_size( string_buffer_t *sb,
-		     long long sz );
+void sb_format_size( string_buffer_t *sb, long long sz );
+wcstring format_size(long long sz);
 
 /**
    Return the number of seconds from the UNIX epoch, with subsecond
diff --git a/wildcard.cpp b/wildcard.cpp
index aba13ae28..6bc5a138a 100644
--- a/wildcard.cpp
+++ b/wildcard.cpp
@@ -628,7 +628,7 @@ static void wildcard_completion_allocate( std::vector<completion_t> &list,
 {
 	const wchar_t *desc;
 	struct stat buf, lbuf;
-	static string_buffer_t *sb = 0;
+    wcstring sb;
 	
 	int free_completion = 0;
 	
@@ -638,18 +638,7 @@ static void wildcard_completion_allocate( std::vector<completion_t> &list,
 	
 	long long sz; 
 
-	if( !sb )
-	{
-		sb = sb_halloc( global_context );
-	}
-	else
-	{
-		sb_clear( sb );
-	}
-
 	CHECK( fullname, );
-		
-	sb_clear( sb );
 
 	/*
 	  If the file is a symlink, we need to stat both the file itself
@@ -697,15 +686,16 @@ static void wildcard_completion_allocate( std::vector<completion_t> &list,
 		free_completion = 1;
 		flags = flags | COMPLETE_NO_SPACE;
 		completion = wcsdupcat( completion, L"/" );
-		sb_append( sb, desc );
+        sb.append(desc);
 	}
 	else
-	{							
-		sb_append( sb, desc, L", ", NULL );
-		sb_format_size( sb, sz );
+	{
+        sb.append(desc);
+        sb.append(L", ");
+        sb.append(format_size(sz));
 	}
 
-	wildcard_complete( completion, wc, (wchar_t *)sb->buff, 0, list, flags );
+	wildcard_complete( completion, wc, sb.c_str(), NULL, list, flags );
 	if( free_completion )
 		free( (void *)completion );
 }