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NAME

units - conversion program

SYNOPSIS

units [ -v ] [ file ]

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
    * 2.54
	/ 0.3937008

A quantity is specified as a multiplicative combination of units and floating point numbers. Operators have the following precedence: 

+ -	add and subtract
* / &215; &247;	multiply and divide
catenation	multiply
² ³ ^	exponentiation
|	divide
( ... )	grouping

Most familiar units, abbreviations, and metric prefixes are recognized, together with a generous leavening of exotica and a few constants of nature including:

\$1\fP \$2 \$3 \$4 \$5 \$6 



The
pound

is a unit of
mass.
Compound names are run together, e.g.
lightyear.

British units that differ from their US counterparts
are prefixed thus:
brgallon.

Currency is denoted
belgiumfranc,

britainpound,

etc.

The complete list of units can be found in
/lib/units.

A
file

argument to
units

specifies a file to be used instead of
/lib/units.

The
-v

flag causes
units

to print its entire database.

EXAMPLE





you have: 15 pounds force/in²
you want: atm
	* 1.020689
	/ 0.9797299



FILES




/lib/units


SOURCE




/appl/cmd/units.y



/appl/cmd/units.b


BUGS




Since
units

does only multiplicative scale changes,
it can convert Kelvin to Rankine but not Centigrade to
Fahrenheit, except that the latter is handled as a special case.


Currency conversions are only as accurate as the last time someone
updated
/lib/units.






UNITS(1
)
Rev:  Thu Feb 15 14:42:47 GMT 2007