article

Object-oriented units of measurement

Authors:

Victor Luchangco,

Jan-Willem Maessen,

Guy L. Steele, Jr.Authors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 39, Issue 10

Pages 384 - 403

https://doi.org/10.1145/1035292.1029008

Published: 01 October 2004 Publication History

Abstract

Programs that manipulate physical quantities typically represent these quantities as raw numbers corresponding to the quantities' measurements in particular units (e.g., a length represented as a number of meters). This approach eliminates the possibility of catching errors resulting from adding or comparing quantities expressed in different units (as in the Mars Climate Orbiter error [11]), and does not support the safe comparison and addition of quantities of the same dimension. We show how to formulate dimensions and units as classes in a nominally typed object-oriented language through the use of statically typed metaclasses. Our formulation allows both parametric and inheritance poly-morphism with respect to both dimension and unit types. It also allows for integration of encapsulated measurement systems, dynamic conversion factors, declarations of scales (including nonlinear scales) with defined zeros, and nonconstant exponents on dimension types. We also show how to encapsulate most of the "magic machinery" that handles the algebraic nature of dimensions and units in a single meta-class that allows us to treat select static types as generators of a free abelian group.

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Cited By

McKeever S(2023)Managing Quantities and Units of Measurement in Code BasesUpdates on Software Usability10.5772/intechopen.108014Online publication date: 22-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108014
McKeever S(2023)Acknowledging Implementation Trade-Offs When Developing with Units of MeasurementModel-Driven Engineering and Software Development10.1007/978-3-031-38821-7_2(25-47)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38821-7_2
Trancón y Widemann BLepper M(2023)Towards a Theory of Conversion Relations for Prefixed Units of MeasureRelational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science10.1007/978-3-031-28083-2_16(258-273)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-28083-2_16
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Index Terms

Object-oriented units of measurement
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Formal language definitions
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features
      2. Language types
        Object oriented languages
2. Theory of computation
  1. Formal languages and automata theory

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 39, Issue 10

OOPSLA '04

October 2004

448 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/1035292

Issue’s Table of Contents

OOPSLA '04: Proceedings of the 19th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications
October 2004
462 pages
ISBN:1581138318
DOI:10.1145/1028976
General Chair:
John Vlissides
IBM Research
,
Program Chair:
Doug Schmidt
Vanderbilt

Copyright © 2004 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 01 October 2004

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 39, Issue 10

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Cited By

McKeever S(2023)Managing Quantities and Units of Measurement in Code BasesUpdates on Software Usability10.5772/intechopen.108014Online publication date: 22-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108014
McKeever S(2023)Acknowledging Implementation Trade-Offs When Developing with Units of MeasurementModel-Driven Engineering and Software Development10.1007/978-3-031-38821-7_2(25-47)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38821-7_2
Trancón y Widemann BLepper M(2023)Towards a Theory of Conversion Relations for Prefixed Units of MeasureRelational and Algebraic Methods in Computer Science10.1007/978-3-031-28083-2_16(258-273)Online publication date: 3-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-28083-2_16
Kwasinski A(2017)Signals, Systems, and Design [Book review]Computing in Science and Engineering10.1109/MCSE.2017.315125119:4(72-73)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MCSE.2017.3151251
Foster M(2017)Quantity Correctness in Fortran ProgramsComputing in Science and Engineering10.1109/MCSE.2017.315123719:4(83-87)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MCSE.2017.3151237
Celicourt PPiasecki M(2015)HydroUnits: supporting dimensional analysis in hydrologic computing systems using sensor-based standardsJournal of Hydroinformatics10.2166/hydro.2015.07518:2(168-184)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2015
https://doi.org/10.2166/hydro.2015.075
Foster M(2013)Quantities, units and computingComputer Standards & Interfaces10.1016/j.csi.2013.02.00135:5(529-535)Online publication date: Sep-2013
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2013.02.001
Owre SSaha IShankar N(2012)Automatic Dimensional Analysis of Cyber-Physical SystemsFM 2012: Formal Methods10.1007/978-3-642-32759-9_30(356-371)Online publication date: 2012
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32759-9_30
Chen EChang JZhu Y(2024)CoolerSpace: A Language for Physically Correct and Computationally Efficient Color ProgrammingProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897418:OOPSLA2(846-875)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689741
Mu PMavrogeorgis NVasiladiotis CTsoutsouras VKaparounakis OStanley-Marbell PBarbalace ARodríguez GSadayappan PSukumaran-Rajam A(2024)CoSense: Compiler Optimizations using Sensor Technical SpecificationsProceedings of the 33rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Compiler Construction10.1145/3640537.3641576(73-85)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640537.3641576
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