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convert

Discworld player help

convert

Name

convert - Convert measurement units

Syntax

convert <amount> <units> to <other units>
convert time <days> days <hours> hours <minutes> minutes to <world>
convert money <money> {in|from} <place> {to|in} <place>

Description

This command does unit conversion for you, so the rest of the world can tell what those silly Americans are talking about and vice versa. The units that can be converted are:

Length:inches (in), feet (ft), yards (yd), rods, smoots, furlongs (fur), miles (mi), meters/metres (m)
Area:acres (ac), hectares (ha), square length units
Volume:fluid ounces (fl oz), gills (gi), cups (c), pints (pt), quarts (qt), gallons (gal), hogsheads (hhd), liters/litres (l, L), cubic length units
Weight:ounces (oz), pounds (lb), stones (st), tons, gems, debens (db), Discworld pounds (dw lb), grams (g)
Time:seconds (sec, s), minutes (min), hours (hr), days, weeks, fortnights, years (yr)
Temperature:celcius/celsius (C), fahrenheit (F)

(Yes, we know grams are mass, not weight, but we are making the possibly dangerous assumption that you live somewhere near the surface of the planet Earth.)

The abbreviations for temperatures use the capital C and the capital F. This is actually case sensitive.

Square length units may be used as for areas, and cubic length units maybe be used for volumes. For example "convert 50 square feet to square meters" or "convert 10 cubic feet to pints". "Square" may be abbreviated "sq" or "sq." or you can attach a suffix of "2" or "^2" on the units, as "miles2" or "in^2". Similarly, "cubic" may be appreviated "cu" or "cu.", or you can use a "3" or "^3" suffix on the unit.

By default all volume measures are Imperial units. If you want the version used in the United States, put a "US" in front of it, eg, US fluid ounces. The hogshead used in this command is the US wine hogshead, which is equivalent to 63 US gallons.

One smoot is equal to 5 feet, 7 inches. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot

The years used in this command are mean tropical years of 365.24218967 days. The miles are international statute miles of 5280 international feet, or precisely 1.609344 km.

You can also use this command to convert rates, eg, miles per hour to meters per second. Any of the unit groups can be used in either place.

The metric prefixes between milli- on the small end and kilo- on the big end are recognized as are their abbreviations. Prefixes will work with both metric and English units. This means you can do things like convert 150 US fluid milliounces per second to hectoliters per hour, which is silly, but then, this is Discworld.

Due to the limitations of the underlying mathematics, conversions that result in very large or very small numbers may not be completely accurate. For example, the result of converting the speed of light to furlongs per fortnight will be slightly off from the actual value.

Time

With the 'convert time' syntax, the command can give an amount of Discworld time in the Roundworld, or vice versa.

Money

With the 'convert money' syntax, various amounts of Discworld currencies can be converted to their value in other currencies. The amount of money should be in the format given by 'money' or 'money brief' in order to be parsable.

Examples

> convert 26 celcius to fahrenheit
78.8000003

> convert 80 F to C
26.666668

> convert 186000 miles per second to kilometers per hour
1077616896.000000

Abe Simpson exclaims loudly: My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!

> convert 40 rods/hhd to mi/US gal
0.001984

Presto wisps: I must've drank 10 pints of beer last night. :(

> convert 10 US pints to pints
8.326738

> smirk presto

> convert money 2 Agatean Empire ten-rhinu from cwc to am
20Rh is worth A$24.

> convert time 3 days 4 hours 42 minutes to roundworld
3 days, 4 hours and 42 minutes on the Disc is 23 hours and 36 seconds in the real world.

> convert time 3:4:42:0 to roundworld
3 days, 4 hours and 42 minutes on the Disc is 23 hours and 36 seconds in the real world.

See also

conversions, maths, rate