I'm revamping a program which keeps a database of manufactured parts and is full of measurements. I am of course converting these measurements to metric, but some columns can have a length or a mass (material needed is measured by length if it's wire, I guess) and one column (so far) can be in lots or pieces as well as in kilograms. To keep track of what unit the quantity was entered in, I'm using a four-byte code which also indicates the precision. Has such a code already been standardized? If not, to whom would I propose this code?
The way I'm thinking of laying it out is like this: The first two bytes indicate the quantity (0=length, 1=mass, 2=time, etc.), the third byte indicates the unit (10 is the base metric unit, so for length 10 is a meter, 0f a decimeter, 0c a millimeter, 0b a micrometer, 15 a megameter, etc. and non-metric units are assigned numbers from 20 to ff), and the fourth byte indicates the number of digits after the decimal point, or if some other format (such as base 60 for degrees of arc) is to be used. phma
