3 ms·

Why do I get: > unknown unit 'millilightseconds' Is this one of the embellishments that just makes the story more entertaining?

anonfunction 12y ago
I had the same thing happen to me. From the manpage I gathered that units uses the definitions defined in /usr/share/misc/units.lib, by running cat /usr/share/misc/units.lib | grep light I found I only had lightyear and it's shortcut ly defined. I added lightsecond, and since milli prefix is already defined it worked a treat. Here's the line you'll want to add: lightsecond lightyear / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60
masklinn 12y ago
More complete units library. Note how the original author's units has 1311 units and 63 prefixes, OSX only has 586 and 56.
riking 12y ago
If you're on a mac, try $ brew install gnu-units - it's probably using a very incomplete library of units.
kaishiro 12y ago
Not an embellishment at all. Via 'man units': "The conversion information is read from a units data file that is called 'definitions.units' and is usually located in the '/usr/share/units' directory." Via definitions.units (L. 223), you can see the milli- prefix: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-definitions-units-L223 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-... Via deifnitions.units (L. 1060), you can see the lightsecond unit: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-definitions-units-L1060 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-... Maybe check it for completeness? Edit: Spelling
- anonfunction 12y ago
  Some distributions only support lightyear so adding this line to your units file (which you can find with man units) will give you support for *lightseconds: lightsecond lightyear / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60
  - kaishiro 12y ago
    Nice!
frivoal 12y ago
I don't know about what "units" support, but if you ever need picolightseconds in your web design, CSS got you covered: http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-egg/#astro-units http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-egg/#astro-units

anonfunction 12y ago

I had the same thing happen to me. From the manpage I gathered that units uses the definitions defined in /usr/share/misc/units.lib, by running cat /usr/share/misc/units.lib | grep light I found I only had lightyear and it's shortcut ly defined. I added lightsecond, and since milli prefix is already defined it worked a treat. Here's the line you'll want to add: lightsecond lightyear / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60

masklinn 12y ago

More complete units library. Note how the original author's units has 1311 units and 63 prefixes, OSX only has 586 and 56.

riking 12y ago

If you're on a mac, try $ brew install gnu-units - it's probably using a very incomplete library of units.

kaishiro 12y ago

Not an embellishment at all. Via 'man units': "The conversion information is read from a units data file that is called 'definitions.units' and is usually located in the '/usr/share/units' directory." Via definitions.units (L. 223), you can see the milli- prefix: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-definitions-units-L223 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-... Via deifnitions.units (L. 1060), you can see the lightsecond unit: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-definitions-units-L1060 https://gist.github.com/anonymous/f06769de95e0c7f9e658#file-... Maybe check it for completeness? Edit: Spelling

anonfunction 12y ago
Some distributions only support lightyear so adding this line to your units file (which you can find with man units) will give you support for *lightseconds: lightsecond lightyear / 365.25 / 24 / 60 / 60
- kaishiro 12y ago
  Nice!

frivoal 12y ago

I don't know about what "units" support, but if you ever need picolightseconds in your web design, CSS got you covered: http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-egg/#astro-units http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css-egg/#astro-units