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UNITS(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual UNITS(1) NAME units -- conversion program SYNOPSIS units [-f filename] [-H filename] [-qvUV] [from-unit to-unit] OPTIONS The following options are available: -h -No, --help Show an overview of options -f filename No, --file filename Specify the name of the units data file to load. -H filename No, --historyfile filename Ignored, for compatibility with GNU units. -e, --exponential Behave as if -o '%6e' was typed. -q -No, --quiet Suppress prompting of the user for units and the display of sta- tistics about the number of units loaded. -U -No, --unitsfile If the default unit file exists prints its location. If not, print "Units data file not found" -t -No, --terse Only print the result. This is used when calling units from other programs for easy to parse results. -v -No, --verbose Print the units in the conversion output. Be more verbose in general. -o format No, --output-format format Select the output format string by which numbers are printed. -V -No, --version Print the version number, usage, and then exit. from-unit to-unit Allow a single unit conversion to be done directly from the com- mand line. The program will not print prompts. It will print out the result of the single specified conversion. DESCRIPTION The units program converts quantities expressed in various scales to their equivalents in other scales. The units program can only handle multiplicative or affine scale changes. It works interactively by prompting the user for input: You have: meters You want: feet * 3.2808399 / 0.3048 You have: cm^3 You want: gallons * 0.00026417205 / 3785.4118 You have: meters/s You want: furlongs/fortnight * 6012.8848 / 0.00016630952 You have: 1|2 inch You want: cm * 1.27 / 0.78740157 You have: 85 degF You want: degC 29.444444 Powers of units can be specified using the '^' character as shown in the example, or by simple concatenation: 'cm3' is equivalent to 'cm^3'. Mul- tiplication of units can be specified by using spaces, a dash or an asterisk. Division of units is indicated by the slash ('/'). Note that multiplication has a higher precedence than division, so 'm/s/s' is the same as 'm/s^2' or 'm/s s'. Division of numbers must be indicated using the vertical bar ('|'). To convert half a meter, you would write '1|2 meter'. If you write '1/2 meter' then the units program would interpret that as equivalent to '0.5/meter'. If you enter incompatible unit types, the units program will print a message indicating that the units are not conformable and it will display the reduced form for each unit: You have: ergs/hour You want: fathoms kg^2 / day conformability error 2.7777778e-11 kg m^2 / sec^3 2.1166667e-05 kg^2 m / sec The conversion information is read from a units data file. The default file includes definitions for most familiar units, abbreviations and met- ric prefixes. Some constants of nature included are: pi ratio of circumference to diameter c speed of light e charge on an electron g acceleration of gravity force same as g mole Avogadro's number water pressure per unit height of water mercury pressure per unit height of mercury au astronomical unit The unit 'pound' is a unit of mass. Compound names are run together so 'pound force' is a unit of force. The unit 'ounce' is also a unit of mass. The fluid ounce is 'floz'. British units that differ from their US counterparts are prefixed with 'br', and currency is prefixed with its country name: 'belgiumfranc', 'britainpound'. When searching for a unit, if the specified string does not appear exactly as a unit name, then units will try to remove a trailing 's' or a trailing 'es' and check again for a match. To find out what units are available read the standard units file. If you want to add your own units you can supply your own file. A unit is specified on a single line by giving its name and an equivalence. Be careful to define new units in terms of old ones so that a reduction leads to the primitive units which are marked with '!' characters. The units program will not detect infinite loops that could be caused by careless unit definitions. Comments in the unit definition file begin with a '#' or '/' character at the beginning of a line. Prefixes are defined in the same was as standard units, but with a trail- ing dash at the end of the prefix name. If a unit is not found even after removing trailing 's' or 'es', then it will be checked against the list of prefixes. Prefixes will be removed until a legal base unit is identified. Here is an example of a short units file that defines some basic units. m !a! sec !b! micro- 1e-6 minute 60 sec hour 60 min inch 0.0254 m ft 12 inches mile 5280 ft FILES /usr/share/misc/definitions.units the standard units library AUTHORS Adrian Mariano <adrian@cam.cornell.edu> BUGS The effect of including a '/' in a prefix is surprising. Exponents entered by the user can be only one digit. You can work around this by multiplying several terms. The user must use | to indicate division of numbers and / to indicate division of symbols. This distinction should not be necessary. The program contains various arbitrary limits on the length of the units converted and on the length of the data file. The program should use a hash table to store units so that it does not take so long to load the units list and check for duplication. FreeBSD 11.1 July 4, 2014 FreeBSD 11.1
NAME | SYNOPSIS | OPTIONS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | AUTHORS | BUGS
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