20050603: Use of Java udunits package

• To: Peter Hollemans <Peter.Hollemans@xxxxxxxx>
• Subject: 20050603: Use of Java udunits package
• From: Steve Emmerson <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:41:36 -0600

Peter,

> To: support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From: Peter Hollemans <Peter.Hollemans@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Use of Java udunits package.
> Organization: NOAA
> Keywords: 200506031601.j53G1GZu004496 netCDF-Java UDUNITS

The above message contained the following:

> I recently became aware of the udunits Java port from this support message:
> 
> http://my.unidata.ucar.edu/content/support/help/MailArchives/netcdf-java/msg00148.html
> 
> I downloaded the source code file ncSrc-2.2.zip and created Javadocs for 
> the ucar.units package so I could read the API as it's not in the 
> standard online Javadocs (I guess because people are supposed to use the 
> ucar.nc2.units package).
> 
> My question is this.  The C language version of udunits contains the 
> utConvert() function, which returns the y=ax+b coefficients for a units 
> conversion.  Is there an equivalent method in the Java API, or some way 
> to recover those coefficients?  There are some ways that I can think of 
> to get them, such as using the Unit.convertTo(double,Unit) and passing 
> in zero to get the additive constant b, and then 1 to get the 
> multiplicative constant a as y-b.  But I thought there must be some 
> better way supported by a Java API method.

One of the goals of an object-oriented programming language like Java is
to insulate the user of a class from the implementation of the class.
The fact that a convertion between units might be Gaussian (y = ax + b)
or linear (y = ax) or logarithmic (y = A lg(x)) is hidden from the user
of the classs.  Doing what you want would make the implementation
visible and cast the implementation in concrete -- preventing better or
different implementations.

Why would you want the coefficients?

> Peter.
> 
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> 
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Regards,
Steve Emmerson

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