Re: Unit conversion database (was: multiple paramters in aggregate function) - Mailing list pgsql-general
From | Alban Hertroys |
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Subject | Re: Unit conversion database (was: multiple paramters in aggregate function) |
Date | |
Msg-id | D78CA7D9-4463-4468-8562-3C2E42C9F752@solfertje.student.utwente.nl Whole thread Raw |
In response to | Re: Unit conversion database (was: multiple paramters in aggregate function) ("Karsten Hilbert" <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net>) |
Responses |
Re: Unit conversion database (was: multiple paramters in
aggregate function)
Re: Unit conversion database (was: multiple paramters in aggregate function) |
List | pgsql-general |
On 19 Aug 2009, at 19:20, Karsten Hilbert wrote: > Alban, > > I think having an installable schema for units of measure with > definitions and functions would be a great addition to PostgreSQL. Karsten, Thanks for the praise and the links. > I for one know we would use it in GNUmed (wiki.gnumed.de). > > A few points: > > Would these guys be of use as a source for reference data ? > > http://unitsofmeasure.org/ That looks certainly interesting, especially the fact that they provide a source of units and conversions in an XML format. Although their conversion formulas don't look all that easy to parse. I've run into a few of the problems they mention already; for example the slight differences between imperial and US units of measurement with the same names and abbreviations... > You may want to think about whether there's use in combining > units with tagged types: > > http://svana.org/kleptog/pgsql/taggedtypes.html Yes, I've been thinking the same thing. I had it bookmarked already for the very purpose of checking it out and see how I could use tagged types with units. > There's also a Debian package which comes with a text format > units database: > > http://packages.debian.org/source/sid/units > > The original source for that: > > This package was put together by me, James Troup <james@nocrew.org>, > from the GNU sources, which I obtained from > sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk:/pub/gnu/units-1.54.tar.gz. I don't consider that tool very reliable[1]. A number of their concepts are probably usable though. I have it's source in my source tree (FreeBSD), so ample opportunity to peek. [1] It doesn't correctly convert °C to °F or vv, that was one of the first things I tried. > The current version of the package was obtained from > ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/units > by John Hasler, the current Debian maintainer. > >> I think this database is fairly usable in its current state. Any more >> development on it > > Yes please ! :-) He he, all right then! There certainly are some things left to improve. One thing I noticed from the links you sent is that I ignored a few units used in medicine assuming they were deprecated ages ago - apparently not... Then again, encouraging their usage may not be the best thing to do, but who am I to decide what units people use eh? >> warrants its own project page somewhere and taking >> it off-list, I'll no longer pester you with updates on this ;) > > Ah, no problem. Please keep posting release announcements. Maybe > on -announce if so. Yes, announce would be the right place. I dislike it when people start using this list for announcements of new versions of their software, so let's not start doing that myself :) Alban Hertroys -- If you can't see the forest for the trees, cut the trees and you'll see there is no forest. !DSPAM:737,4a8c44fa10131730049303!
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