C#•13mo ago

❔ Best pattern to alleviate the pain of a many-to-many unit conversion program?

For example, converting gallons to any other volumetric unit and vice versa

4 Replies

assuming you don't want to just define all possible combinations and look them up from, like, a dictionary model all the "primitive" conversions that you need as edges on a graph with types being nodes and your general-purpose converter can walk the graph to find the most-efficient chain of conversions to link any two types or can identify types that can't be converted

jcotton42•13mo ago

Define conversions to/from base units Eg liters for volume

Doombox•13mo ago

literally solved this precise issue this way, just pick a common unit and you're gold

public enum Temperature
{
    [Unit("°c", 1)]
    Celsius,
    [Unit("°F", typeof(FahrenheitConverter))]
    Fahrenheit,
    [Unit("K", typeof(KelvinConverter))]
    Kelvin
}
public enum Mass
{
    [Unit("g", 1)]
    Grams,
    [Unit("lb", 453.59237)]
    Pounds,
    [Unit("oz", 28.34952)]
    Ounces
    // etc...
}

public enum Temperature
{
    [Unit("°c", 1)]
    Celsius,
    [Unit("°F", typeof(FahrenheitConverter))]
    Fahrenheit,
    [Unit("K", typeof(KelvinConverter))]
    Kelvin
}
public enum Mass
{
    [Unit("g", 1)]
    Grams,
    [Unit("lb", 453.59237)]
    Pounds,
    [Unit("oz", 28.34952)]
    Ounces
    // etc...
}

is what I ended up doing, either they use a fixed ratio or a custom converter where appropriate

Accord•13mo ago

Was this issue resolved? If so, run /close - otherwise I will mark this as stale and this post will be archived until there is new activity.

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❔ Best pattern to alleviate the pain of a many-to-many unit conversion program?