Units on the Web¶

You can try out the string conversions through the units Webserver

This page allows you to enter a measurement string and a unit string for conversion.

The measurement string can be of any form with a number and units

10 m
hundred pounds
45.673 GB
dozen feet

the unit string should be some unit that is convertible from the measurement units:

inches
troy oz
kiB
british fathoms

The conversion also supports mathematical operations see Units From Strings for additional details on string conversions. The units can also be set to *`or `<base> to convert the measurement to base units.

Rest API¶

The units web server does not serve files, it generates all responses on the fly. There are 3 URI indicators it responds to beyond the root page.

/convert : responds with an html page
/convert_trivial : responds with the results as a simple text
/convert_json : responds with a json string containing the requested conversions and the results.

For example in Linux or anything with curl

$ curl -s "13.52.135.81/convert_trivial?measurement=10%20tons&units=lb"
20000

$ curl -s "13.52.135.81/convert_json?measurement=10%20tons&units=lb"
{
"request_measurement":"",
"request_units":"lb"",
"measurement":"",
"units":"lb"",
"value":"nan"
}

 $ curl -s "13.52.135.81/convert_json?measurement=ten%20meterspersecond&units=feetperminute&caction=to_string"
{
"request_measurement":"ten meterspersecond",
"request_units":"feetperminute",
"measurement":"10 m/s",
"units":"ft/min",
"value":"1968.5"
}

This works with POST or GET methods. The caction field can be set to “to_string” this will “simplify” the units in the result or at least use the internal to_string operations to convert to an interpretable string in more accessible units.