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[UDUNITS #OYS-245485]: Udunits and UCUM

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  • Subject: [UDUNITS #OYS-245485]: Udunits and UCUM
  • Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:54:02 -0600
Hi Aaron,

> I have been taking a look at units of measure packages, and it seems as
> though there may be overlap in what the Unified Code for Units of
> Measure (UCUM) specifies and what Udunits provides.  While UCUM is more
> of a standard and less a library, both define similar concepts and
> syntax.  Has there been any discussion on Udunits and UCUM alignment?

This is the first I've heard of UCUM.  Thanks for mentioning it.

No, there's been no discussion of merging the two.

> One possible path might be to take the UCUM syntax and extend the UCUM
> base units to define the few units that are currently covered by Udunits
> and not UCUM.  These two packages are the leading candidates for units
> of measure support for my project, and there may be an opportunity for
> confluence.

Have you looked at the UDUNITS-2 package?  The database is in XML
and the package supports ASCII, ISO Latin-1, and UTF-8 character
encodings.

> As a side note, UnitsML is another package (produced by NIST) that is
> going through OASIS at the moment, but it takes a significantly
> different approach and does not appear to be as directly relevant.
> 
> Thanks,
> Aaron Braeckel
> NCAR/RAL


Regards,
Steve Emmerson

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: OYS-245485
Department: Support UDUNITS
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed