# The Alicorn.jl package

Dynamically define and manipulate physical units and quantities in Julia

The Alicorn package serves a dual purpose:

1. Dynamically define and combine physical units based on the International System of Units (SI). This functionality is provided by the Units submodule.
2. Handle physical quantities and correctly treat their units. This functionality is provided by the Quantities submodule.

## Documentation

This documentation is divided into two parts: The Manual describes how to use Alicorn to define units and handle physical quantities. The Reference documents all types, methods, and constants that form the public API of Alicorn.

## Features

• Alicorn represents units as objects of type AbstractUnit with suitable methods to create and manipulate them
• Alicorn represents quantities as objects of type AbstractQuantity with suitable methods to create and manipulate them
• Units can be combined and quantities formed using intuitive arithmetic syntax, no parsing of strings representing units is required
• New units can be dynamically defined during runtime, no manipulation of source files or configuration files is required

## Installation

The Alicorn.jl package is registered in the General Julia registry and can be installed using Julia's package manager Pkg.jl: In the Julia REPL, add Alicorn to your default Julia environment by running

julia> ]

pkg> add Alicorn

## Quick Start

The listing below shows a minimal example of how to use Alicorn. Refer to the Basic Usage section for more details.

julia> using Alicorn

julia> ucat = UnitCatalogue() ;

julia> mass = 2 * (ucat.kilo * ucat.gram)
2 kg

julia> acceleration = 10 * ucat.meter * ucat.second^-2
10 m s^-2

julia> force = mass * acceleration
20 kg m s^-2

julia> inUnitsOf(force, ucat.kilo * ucat.newton)
0.02 kN

## Alternative

If you are interested in Alicorn, also have a look at the mature Unitful.jl package. Unitful.jl offers functionalities similar to Alicorn.jl, and more.