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Syntax for Units

Registered by Eike on 2009-04-11

Converting between units is error prone and clutters formulas very much. Therefore the language should have support for units built into it. To have physical units as part of the language the syntax must be extended.

Blueprint information

Status:: Started

Approver:: None

Priority:: High

Drafter:: None

Direction:: Needs approval

Assignee:: None

Definition:: Drafting

Series goal:: Accepted for trunk

Implementation:: Started

Milestone target:: 0.4.2

Started by: Eike on 2010-07-24

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Blog article about a language with units of measure:
http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewkennedy/archive/2008/08/29/units-of-measure-in-f-part-one-introducing-units.aspx

Syntax
--------
The unit should be written between curly braces, like this: {m/s}. This has the advantage of leaving the square braces for selecting a place/subspace in a distributed variable. It is also more or less correct, according to the German Wikipedia:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahlenwertgleichung

Other Units Packages to investigate
---------------------------------------------

units
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/units/

quantities
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/quantities/
http://github.com/python-quantities/python-quantities

Unum
License: LGPL
http://home.scarlet.be/be052320/Unum.html

PhysicalQuantities
Can really parse unit prefixes.
http://dirac.cnrs-orleans.fr/ScientificPython/ScientificPythonManual/Scientific.Physics.PhysicalQuantities-module.html

simtk.physical.Quantity
https://simtk.org/home/python_units

(?)