units

- converts quantities expressed in standard scales to other scales

Synopsis

units 

Description

units converts quantities expressed in various standard scales to their equivalents in other scales. It works interactively in this fashion:

You have:~~inch
You want:~~cm
        * 2.540000e+00
/ 3.937008e-01

A quantity is specified as a multiplicative combination of units optionally preceded by a numeric multiplier. Powers are indicated by suffixed positive integers, division by the usual sign:

You have:~~15 lbs force/in2
You want:~~atm
        * 1.020689e+00
        / 9.797299e-01

units only does multiplicative scale changes; thus it can convert Kelvin to Rankine, but not Celsius to Fahrenheit. Most familiar units, abbreviations, and metric prefixes are recognized, together with a generous leavening of exotica and a few constants of nature including:

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 head per unit height of water,

au

astronomical unit.

Pound is not recognized as a unit of mass; lb is. Compound names are run together, (for example, lightyear). British units that differ from their U.S. counterparts are prefixed thus: brgallon. For a complete list of units, type:

cat /usr/share/lib/unittab

Files

/usr/share/lib/unittab

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

See Also

attributes(5)