On 4/16/06, Andrew Daugherity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 4/11/06, Ted Unangst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > rewrite units. it can convert euros to dollars at an awesome rate of > > 94 cents per euro, but can't convert temperature. > > What's worse is it *does* recognize 'degF' and 'degC' units, but the > conversion between them only does the multiply/divide by 9/5, but not > the add/subtract 32 part, so it gives incorrect results. While this > inability is mentioned in the man page, it would be better to not > include 'degF' at all than to have it be incorrect. Most equations > would use SI units anyway, right? (When I first discovered the > degF/degC units grep'ing through the units library, my first thought > was that the man page was outdated and it did handle them now; > unfortunately that is not the case.) > > Similarly, currencies fluctuate enough to not be worth including. > > Unfortunately, this limitation of multiplicative scales only most > likely runs rather deep, and would probably require a large amount of > work to fix.
Why not just redesign the program then, and allow arbitrary conversions (eg additive, multiplicative, exponential)? As for money, a script could be written to pull data from somewhere and update the definitions. http://www.xe.com/dfs/ provides such a service, but for an extraordinary fee, but I've just found that http://www.imf.org provides any data you want for any of the 184 currencies they oversee for any date for free. This sounds like a fun project. If no one else wants it, I'll do it. -Nick
