Package: units Version: 1.85-3 Severity: normal
The man page explains why I have had some nasty bugs pop up in my calculations: Multiplication has a higher precedence than division and is evaluated left to right, so `m/s * s/day' is equivalent to `m / s s day' and has dimensions of length per time cubed. Similarly, `1/2 meter' refers to a unit of reciprocal length equivalent to .5/meter, which is probably not what you would intend if you entered that expression. You can indicate division of numbers with the vertical dash (`|'). This operator has the highest precedence so the square root of two thirds could be written `2|3^1|2'. This is a poor choice, because algebraic notation says that division has equal precedence to multiplication, and such operations are performed left to right. This is the convention used in algebra, algebraic calculators, and most computer languages. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations Since any such change is liable to break existing units scripts, it might be wise to make use of a commandline switch or environment variable to switch between the historical implementation and this, if this were to be changed. Cute: You have: 2/3/4 You want: Definition: 0.16666667 You have: 2/3*4 You want: Definition: 0.16666667 -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.15.1 Locale: LANG=en_AU, LC_CTYPE=en_AU (charmap=ISO-8859-1) Versions of packages units depends on: ii libc6 2.3.6-3 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an ii libncurses5 5.5-1 Shared libraries for terminal hand ii libreadline5 5.1-6 GNU readline and history libraries units recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]