un

A unit conversion tool.

Overview

Modifications

Download information

Overview

un is a small command-line utility which converts physical units. It is not simply a list of conversion factors, but you can enter data in one unit and see what it corresponds to in all other units in the group. You will find, among others, groups for length, mass, speed, temperature, and cooking volumes.

The software was written by Gregory R. Simpson. The version used for the CygWin port is dated 1/23/89.

Modifications

The source code is ANSI C and compiles with gcc right out of the box. The makefile needed some polishing, though:

--- makefile.orig	Fri Jun 23 21:08:28 1989
+++ makefile	Sun Aug 01 23:33:27 1999
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 # UN.C
 # Unit conversion program
 
-BIN = /usr/local
-CC = cc -O
-MAN = /usr/man/manl
+BIN = /usr/local/bin
+CC = gcc -O
+MAN = /usr/local/man/man1
 PROG = un
 OBJ = u.o cons.o control.o getit.o temp.o 
 INC = un.h unit_table.h
@@ -27,8 +27,8 @@
 	$(CC) -c temp.c
 
 install:
-	cp $(PROG) $(BIN)
-	chmod a+rx $(BIN)/$(PROG)
-	strip $(BIN)/$(PROG)
-	cp $(PROG).n $(MAN)/$(PROG).l
+	install $(PROG).exe $(BIN)
+	chmod a+rx $(BIN)/$(PROG).exe
+	strip $(BIN)/$(PROG).exe
+	install $(PROG).n $(MAN)/$(PROG).l
 	chmod a+r $(MAN)/$(PROG).l
    

System requirements

I used the following setup to build the software:

• Windows NT 4.0 SP3 Workstation
• CygwinB20.1
• gcc-2.95
• A directory /usr/local with symlinks called bin and man which point to the CygWin bin and man directory, respectively (or use equivalent mounts).

With this setup, make and make install run smoothly.

To manually install the precompiled binary, simply copy un.exe into your Cygwin /bin directory and un.1 into your man1 directory.

Download information

The original sources can be downloaded here.

The precompiled binary for CygwinB20 (they still run on more recent releases like 1.3.2) including a makefile.diff to apply the above patch to the sources are shipped as cygwinb20-units.tar.gz (10 kb).