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(tye)Re4: The Definitive Unit Conversion Script

by tye (Sage)
on Dec 14, 2002 at 06:53 UTC ( [id://219836]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Re^2: The Definitive Unit Conversion Script
in thread The Definitive Unit Conversion Script

The interface I would want would be something like:     my @new= ConvertTo( $toUnits, $fromUnits, @old ); which would convert the numbers in @old from $fromUnits to $toUnits and return the results. So:

# <--------- inches ---------><----- ft -----> my @inches= ConvertTo( 'in', 'ft', 1, 2, 3 ); # @inches is now ( 12, 24, 36 )
Note that it is "to" followed by "from" so the unit name is closest to the numbers that are/will be in those units.

If I want to do a lot of conversions but not all at once, then:

my $toInFromFt= ConvertTo( 'in', 'ft' ); while( <IN> ) { chomp; print OUT $toInFromFt->($_), $/; }
And I'd probably support aliases for units and include a "long alias" for every unit: "inch", "feet", "meter", "centimeter", "Centigrade", "Farenheit", "Kelvin", "second", "hour", etc. just to avoid confusion.

I'd probably put the unit data after __DATA__ so you could just append more units to be able to support them.

The "all possible conversions" is interesting for interactive exploration, but I don't see nearly as much use for it as requesting a specific conversion.

For finding the conversion, I'd look for a direct conversion, but if there isn't one, form the list of all possible conversions and then repeat for each of those:

my @table = ( #### temperature [ c => f => sub { ($_[0] * 9/5) + 32 }, sub { ($_[0] - 32) * 5/9 }, ], [ c => k => sub { $_[0] + 273.16 }, sub { $_[0] - 273.16 }, ], #### mass/weight [ kg => g => 1000 ], [ floz => g => 30 ], [ lbs => kg => 0.4536 ], #### distance [ ft => m => 0.3048 ], [ ft => in => 12 ], [ in => cm => 2.54 ], [ m => cm => 100 ], [ yd => m => 0.9144 ], [ km => m => 1000 ], [ mile => km => 1.609347 ], ); my %table; for my $conv ( @table ) { my( $from, $to, $conv, $rev )= @$conv; if( exists $table{$from}{$to} ) { warn "Duplicate conversions to $to from $from.\n"; } $table{$from}{$to}= $conv; if( $rev ) { if( exists $table{$from}{$to} ) { warn "Duplicate conversions to $from from $to.\n"; } $table{$to}{$from}= $rev; } } # Handle reverse conversions when a better one isn't provided: for my $conv ( @table ) { my( $from, $to, $conv )= @$conv; if( ! ref($conv) && ! exists $table{$to}{$from} ) { $table{$to}{$from}= sub { $_[0] / $conv }; } } sub FindConversionPathTo { my( $dest, $source )= @_; my( @sol ); $source= { $source => "$source " }; while( ! @sol ) { for my $src ( keys %sources ) { if( exists $table{$src}{$dest} ) { $source{$src} .= "$dest "; push @sol, $src; } else { for my $dest ( keys %{$table{$src} ) { if( ! exists $source{$dest} ) { $source{$dest}= $source{$src} . "$dest "; } } } } } # Pick one of the solutions at random: (: return split ' ', (@source{@sol})[rand @sol]; }
Untested (I hope you don't mind).

        - tye

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