Here are some suggested new units for the units database file 'udunits.dat'.
CONSTANTS section currently defines 'percent' and '%'. I suggest also
ppt S 1.0e-3 # parts per thousand
ppm S 1.0e-6 # parts per million
ppb S 1.0e-9 # parts per billion
ppt S 1.0e-12 # parts per trillion
This section also currently defines 'bakersdozen' as 13, which I assume is
included just for fun. However it may be worthwhile including some other
common words for numbers such as:
pair P 2
ten P 10
dozen S 12
score S 20
hundred P 100
thousand P 1.0e3
million P 1.0e6
billion P 1.0e9
trillion P 1.0e12
UNITS OF LENGTH section currently defines 'printers_point' & 'printers_pica'.
I suggest changing definition of latter from
printers_pica P 4.217518e-3 meter
to
printers_pica P 12 printers_point # exact
I suggest allowing following aliases
point P printers_point
pica P printers_pica
pc P printers_pica
The abbreviation 'pt' is often used for printers_point, but this is already
defined as pint!
Another important printing unit of length is the 'big point', as used in
PostScript. This has the abbreviation 'bp'. So I suggest:
big_point P inch/72 # exact
bp S big_point
UNITS OF TIME section currently defines 'fortnight', but not 'week' or 'month'!
I suggest following:
week P 7 day
month P year/12 # mean calendar month
lunar_month P 29.530859 day
sidereal_month P 27.321661 day
tropical_month P 27.321582 day
I hope at least some of these are considered useful enough to be included in
'udunits.dat'.
Harvey Davies, Home: +61 3 9772 5199
CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, Work: +61 3 9586 7574
Private Bag No. 1, Mordialloc, Fax: +61 3 9586 7600
Victoria 3195, Australia E-mail: hld@xxxxxxxxxxxx
