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NOTICE: This version of the NSF Unidata web site (archive.unidata.ucar.edu) is no longer being updated.
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To learn about what's going on, see About the Archive Site.
Hi Jonathan, > I was surprised to find that the cf-checker accepted DAYS as a valid unit, but > I understand from Ros and the udunits guide that in udunits-2 the names of > units (not the symbols) are case-insensitive. I am pretty sure that it is > quite often stated that units names (at least SI) are lower case. For > instance, > it is "joule", not "Joule", despite its being named after a person. The > detailed NIST guide, which udunits follows, also appears to uphold this in > sect 9.1 of http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec09.html > > "When spelled out in full, unit names are treated like ordinary English > nouns. Thus the names of all units start with a lower-case letter, except at > the beginning of a sentence or in capitalized material such as a title." > > Could udunits-2 be made to follow this rule? Good question! The UDUNITS-2 package could be made to follow this rule but I'd recommend against it. There's a general principle in programming that says "Be generous in what you take-in but very particular in what you give-out. In this situation it means that the UDUNITS package should be generous in what it accepts for unit strings and finicky in what it prints for a unit. I know for a fact that there are scientific and engineering systems out there that spell their unit names in all capital letters; ergo, the UDUNITS package accepts that. As you know, this is not the case for unit symbols because there, unlike unit names, capitalization can change the meaning of a symbol. > Best wishes > > Jonathan Regards, Steve Emmerson Ticket Details =================== Ticket ID: DOV-245654 Department: Support UDUNITS Priority: Normal Status: Closed