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Annotation of coherent/a/usr/man/COHERENT/units, revision 1.1.1.1

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                      3: units                        Command                        units
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                      8: Convert measurements
                      9: 
                     10: uunniittss [ -uu ]
                     11: 
                     12: units is an interactive program that tells you how to convert one
                     13: unit of  measurement into another.  It prompts  you for two quan-
                     14: tities  with  the  same  dimensions  (e.g., two  measurements  of
                     15: weight,  or  two of  size).   It first  prints  the prompt  ``You
                     16: have:'' to  ask for the unit  you wish to convert  from, and then
                     17: prints the prompt ``You want:''  for the unit you wish to convert
                     18: to.
                     19: 
                     20: ***** Example *****
                     21: 
                     22: The following example  returns the formula for convert fortnights
                     23: into days:
                     24: 
                     25: 
                     26:         You have: fortnight
                     27:         You want: days
                     28:         * 14
                     29:         / 0.071428
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                     31: 
                     32: The  following  fundamental units  are  recognized: meter,  gram,
                     33: second, coulomb, radian,  bit, unitedstatesdollar, sheet, candle,
                     34: kelvin, and copperpiece (shillings and pence).
                     35: 
                     36: A  quantity consists  of  an optional  number (default  1) and  a
                     37: dimension  (default  none).   Numbers  are  floating  point  with
                     38: optional  sign, decimal  part  and exponent.   Dimensions may  be
                     39: specified by fundamental  or derived units, with optional orders.
                     40: A quantity is evaluated left to right: a factor preceded by a `/'
                     41: is a  divisor, otherwise  it is  a multiplier.  For  example, the
                     42: earth's gravitational  acceleration may be entered  as any of the
                     43: following:
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                     45: 
                     46:         9.8e+0 m+1 sec-2
                     47:         32 ft/sec/sec
                     48:         32 ft/sec+2
                     49: 
                     50: 
                     51: British  equivalents  of  US units  are  prefixed  with br,  e.g.
                     52: brpint.  Some other units include c (speed of light), G (gravita-
                     53: tional  constant), R  (gas law constant),  phi (golden  ratio), %
                     54: (1/100), k (1,024), and buck (United States dollar).
                     55: 
                     56: /usr/lib/units is an  ASCII file that contains conversion tables.
                     57: The binary  file /usr/lib/binunits may be  recreated by using the
                     58: -u option.
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                     63: 
                     64: COHERENT Lexicon                                           Page 1
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                     68: 
                     69: units                        Command                        units
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                     72: 
                     73: ***** See Also *****
                     74: 
                     75:  bc, commands, conv
                     76: 
                     77: ***** Files *****
                     78: 
                     79: /uussrr/lliibb/uunniittss -- Known units
                     80: /uussrr/lliibb/bbiinnuunniittss -- Binary encoding of units file
                     81: 
                     82: ***** Diagnostics *****
                     83: 
                     84: If the  ASCII file /usr/lib/units has  been changed more recently
                     85: that the  binary file  /usr/lib/binunits, units prints  a message
                     86: and regenerates the  binary file before continuing; this takes up
                     87: to a few minutes, depending on the speed of your system.
                     88: 
                     89: The  error message ``conformability''  means that  the quantities
                     90: are not  dimensionally compatible.   For example, m/sec  and psi.
                     91: units  prints each  quantity  and its  dimensions in  fundamental
                     92: units.
                     93: 
                     94: ***** Notes *****
                     95: 
                     96: There are the inevitable name collisions: g for gram vs.  gee for
                     97: Earth's gravitational  acceleration, exp for the  base of natural
                     98: logarithms vs.  e for the  charge of an electron, ms for (plural)
                     99: meters  vs.  millisecond,  and of course  batman for  the Persian
                    100: measure of weight rather than the Turkish.
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                    130: COHERENT Lexicon                                           Page 2
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