Re: Storing units in the database

From: Misha Dorman <misha_at_no_mishapen_spam.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 21:47:22 +0100
Message-ID: <11d8at8qkp11u25_at_corp.supernews.com>


Marshall Spight wrote:
> I believe that C++, for example, has everything you need to
> be able to do this sort of thing in the type system.

See e.g.
http://www.awprofessional.com/articles/article.asp?p=375705&seqNum=1, which describes a framework for enforcing dimensional correctness; extension to handle automatic units declaration and conversion is not too hard (the hardest part is probably that a naive implementation will have lots of rounding error -- probably want to implement it using rationals rather than floating point).

> I am not aware, however, of any body of people finding it to be
> worth the effort.

The Ariane-5 software designers (and budget holders) might have been glad of it...

Misha Received on Tue Jul 12 2005 - 22:47:22 CEST

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