Morning all… I think that there are several issues in the interplay of the \units and \digits command that could be a bit better (Sorry Hans…all meant in the best possible way).
digits_trial.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
So here is a complete example and the pdf I get, after some experimentation.
With kludges of my own. I'd guess there are several people using ConTEXt for
the sciences, so this may help some, or some may set me on a better path…
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\starttext
\setdigitmode 6
{\em digit exponent powers - don't work}
\digits{20e-12}
\digits{-123.222,00e-12} % this one gives nothing at all
But it seems it should \emdash\ ConTEXt magazine3 May 2003, from which the
following non-working examples come
\digits 123.222,00^10 % this one gives nothing at all
\digits 123.222,00e10 % this one gives nothing at all
\digits /123.222,00e-12 % this one gives nothing at all
\digits -123.222,00e-12 % this one gives nothing at all
\digits +123.222,00e-12 % this one gives nothing at all
{\em spacing and decimal points}
\digits 12,345,000.90
Has the same effect as this hard-coded beasty.
12~345~000.78
Digits without exponents seem to work....
\digits 1230.92
\digits{12,460,800.89}
{\em Now a little challenge - write out the speed of light, with units. So to
combine units with digits}
\unit{299792458 meter inverse second} % en-route, but I'd like every three
digits separated by a non-breaking space
So try the digits command - two possibilities
%\digit {\unit{299792458 meter inverse second}} % digits nests units - well the
interpreter rejected this one
%\unit{\digit{299792458} meter inverse second} % units nests digits - and this
one.
Conclusion digits and units don't play nicely together...unless someone has a
nice solution
Maybe a bit hard coding - fugly, but maybe...
\unit{299~792~458 meter inverse second} % fails to interpret units, so no good
299~792~\unit{458 meter inverse second} % looks OK, but inelegant
Now for trying to write in standard form..first the inelegant form, but giving
a passable result
Speed = 3 \times\ \unit{10^8 meter inverse second}
But I'd guess this will not be inside a tex box, so the layout might be
dodgy... numbers and units should not be split over two lines...
A much more elegant solution would be:
Speed = \unit{3e8 meter inverse second} % the documentation seems to support
this, but not the practice...
This one would be cleanly coded, if only the exponentiation worked...
{\em spread of a physical quantity}
One more, whilst I'm here. People will want to indicate a spread in a physical
quantity, so:
\unit{400\endash 700 THz} % inserts an unwanted space after the 400: ( 400
–700 THz). (cf 11\endash 14 , which 'behaves' as expected
You can again kludge, by
400\endash \unit{700 THz}
But elegant coding it ain't \ldots and again probably no bounding tex box, so
may get split over two lines.
\stoptext
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KR
Ian___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
