Re: \unit parser ignoring case, in some cases.

[Alan Braslau via ntg-context <ntg-context@ntg.nl>]

On Tue, 14 Mar 2023 15:36:37 +0100
Hans Hagen via ntg-context <ntg-context@ntg.nl> wrote:

> > Indeed, I would like to make NONE of them case insensitive. But
> > currently, when I register an upper case key (C=coulomb) it messes
> > up the lower case prefix (“cm" gets typeset as C•m). I was
> > expecting the parser to distinguish between the “C” and “c”, but it
> > doesn’t. Is that intended?  
> I added an option and an extra registers but it's up to you to decide 
> hwo to use it (and how to deal with conflicts in definitions).

There should not be conflicts, for, formally,
c should be 1/100
C should be Coulomb

k should be 1000
K should be Kelvin

n should be 10^{-9}
N should be Newton

m should be meter
M should be 10^6
(but m also means 10^{-3})

etc.

The problems arise as \unit{} presently accepts

Kelvin and kelvin
Newton and newton
Coulomb and coulomb
Watt and watt
etc.

also, mm could be millimeters, or it could be m•m (m^2).

Right now, \unit{1 mm-1} and \unit{1 m m-1} give the same result:
inverse millimeters (whereas the second should be m•m^{-1}, also known
as radians! ;-)

I suggest that it be limited to formal (and well-defined) unit names,
respecting casing.

I also suggest that unrecognized units either give an error message in
stdout and in the log file and show up in the output (as {\tt <K>} to
be coherent with other subsystems), rather than to be simply ignored.

Alan
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