unitclass

unitclass is a physical unit class suitable for calculations in the sciences. This library provides a Unit class that encapsulates a numerical value with a physical unit. It is intended for both interactive and library use.

unitclass supports all SI units and prefixes, as well as every reasonably common English/Imperial unit and other special units (e.g. bytes and ppm).

Usage Examples

Unit() takes strings or numbers and strings. Any number appended to a unit is assumed to be an exponent. e.g. m2 is m² and in3 is in³. You can create compound units with * and / operators, e.g. N*m or ft/min. There should only be one division operator in a unit, but you can have any number of multiplied units on the left and right sides of the division operator. e.g N*s2/m*kg is interpreted as $\frac{N \cdot s^2}{m \cdot kg}$.

Basic Usage

>>> from unitclass import Unit
>>> Unit('1 in') # number and unit in a string
1 in
>>> Unit(1.0, 'in') # number and unit as separate arguments
1 in
>>> Unit(1, 'in', 'mm') # convert on-the-fly from one unit to another
25.4 mm
>>> a = Unit(1, 'in')
>>> b = Unit(1, 'ft')
>>> a*12 + b
24 in

Exponents

>>> from unitclass import Unit
>>> Unit('1 m3')
1 m³
>>> Unit('1 in4')
1 in⁴
>>> Unit('1 m3').to('in3')
61023.7 in³
>>> Unit('10 in2') / Unit('1 in')
10 in

Compound Units

>>> Unit('1 lbf*ft*s2')
1 lb·ft·s²
>>> Unit(100, 'ft/min')
100 ft/min
>>> Unit('1 N*s2/(m*kg)')
1 N·s²/(m·kg)
>>> Unit(100, 'ft') / Unit(1, 'min')
100 ft/min

Conversion

>>> from unitclass import Unit
>>> Unit(1, 'in', 'mm') # convert on-the-fly from one unit to another
25.4 mm
>>> b = Unit(1, 'ft')
>>> b.to('in') # convert method
12 in
>>> b.to('mm')
304.8 mm
>>> Unit('1 N*m').to('in*lb')
8.85075 in·lb
>>> Unit(100, 'ft/min').to('mph') 
1.13636 mph
>>> Unit(100, 'ft/min').to('kph')
1.8288 kph

Listing/Searching Built-in Units

To see what units are available (output is abbreviated below):

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.list_units()
s     ->unit of time       aliases: ['second', 'seconds', 'sec', 'secs']
    ...

You can also limit the search to a certain quantity:

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.list_units(qty='data')
B     ->unit of data       aliases: ['byte', 'bytes']
KB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['kilobyte', 'kilobytes']
MB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['megabyte', 'megabytes']
GB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['gigabyte', 'gigabytes']
TB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['terabyte', 'terabytes']
PB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['petabyte', 'petabytes']
EB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['exabyte', 'exabytes']

Tip: For a list of available quanities, use the function list_quantities(). Example usage is below in the Custom Unit section.

And you can search for a certain string in a unit or unit alias:

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.list_units(qty='data', search='ga')
MB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['megabyte', 'megabytes']
GB    ->unit of data       aliases: ['gigabyte', 'gigabytes']
>>> uc.list_units(search='mile')
mi    ->unit of length     aliases: ['mile', 'miles', 'statutemile', 'statutemiles', 'smi']
nmi   ->unit of length     aliases: ['nauticalmile', 'nauticalmiles']
gmi   ->unit of length     aliases: ['geographicalmile', 'geographicalmiles']
mph   ->unit of speed      aliases: ['mileperhour']

Simplifying and Expanding Units

The expand() method expands the unit to its fundamental units while simplify() combines units to a single compound unit if one exists for the given combination of units. For all options, type help(Unit.expand) or help(Unit.simplify) at an interactive prompt.

>>> a = Unit('1 W')/Unit('1 A')
>>> a
1 W/A
>>> a.expand()
1 m²·kg/(A·s³)
>>> a.simplify()
1 V

Add Custom Unit

In the example below, a custom unit is being added. The unit measures the quantity "length", the unit is called "blake", two aliases for that unit are "blakes" and "bunits", and 1 blake equals 6 ft.

The fields are as follows: <quantity>, <name>, <aliases>, <factor>, <factor unit>

Once the custom unit is added, it can be used the same as any other built-in unit.

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.add_unit("length", "blake", "blakes bunits", 6, 'ft')
>>> c = Unit(12, 'in', 'blakes')
>>> c
0.166667 blake
>>> Unit(12*12, 'in', 'blakes')
2 blake

You can also bulk load custom units from a CSV file. The CSV would take the same form as the add_unit() function above. Here is an example CSV with two custom units:

length, myin, myinch my_inch, 1/8.0, in
angle, myang,, 1/1e-12*sin(2*pi), rad

And then it is loaded with the import_units() method:

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.import_units('customunits.csv')

When adding custom units, it is helpful to know what quantities are available. (E.g. length, time, force, etc.) These are the quantities that are being measured, or the categories of measurement, not the units themselves. To list them all, use the list_quantities() method (the output has been abbreviated below):

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.list_quantities()
absorbed_dose
acceleration
amount
angle
angular speed
area
    ...
speed
time
torque
unitless
voltage
volume

Converting without using the Unit class

You can skip creating a Unit class if you prefer to just do a quick conversion.

>>> import unitclass as uc
>>> uc.convert(1, 'in', 'mm')
25.4
>>> uc.convert(55, 'mph', 'kph')
88.51391999999998
>>> uc.convert(40, 'lb/ft3', 'kg/m3')
640.7385327602261

Caveats

Force/Mass

Because people expect to convert from pounds to kilograms (i.e. force to mass), this library will automatically handle conversion to/from forces and masses when explicit conversion is requested. This is accomplished by dividing or multiplying by the acceleration of gravity as needed, which makes conversion between force and mass intuitive for the layman and convenient for the rest.

Temperature

Because of the nature of the temperature scales, a simple multiplier does not work, so temperature is handled independently of the other units. This leads to a the limitations that you cannot have custom or compound units with temperature. This is a rare use case, so fixing this limitation is a low priority.