11.17.2008
JScience unit formatting
by Mike Christianson
JScience uses Unicode characters in the String representations of some of its Units. For example, Unicode U+2103 (℃) is used to represent the unit for degrees Celsius. Those characters can cause problems with fonts and/or platforms (Windows, typically) which do not contain or recognize them. Instead, you may see a question mark, box, or other unfamiliar glyph. Here is the symbol for degrees Celsius again — ℃ — can you see it properly?
Using UnitFormat.label(), we can override the String representation to something more compatible, useful, or just different. Here’s how I changed degrees Celsius to be more compatible with my co-workers Windows systems.
UnitFormat.getInstance().label(SI.CELSIUS, "\u00B0" + "C");
And here’s how I changed knots to be represented by kts instead of the default, kn.
UnitFormat.getInstance().label(NonSI.KNOT, "kts");
See how we're connected.