nholthaus/units

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1055 stars · 140 forks observed · 2026-09-01

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

A compile-time, header-only C++23 dimensional-analysis and unit-conversion library with no dependencies. It represents physical quantities as types, so unit conversions are implicit and resolved at compile time while dimensionally inconsistent expressions fail to compile.

Use cases

• convert between units like meters and feet at compile time
• prevent dimensionally inconsistent calculations in physics code
• write quantities with unit literals like 5.0_m
• do dimensional analysis in C++ scientific or engineering code
• avoid unit-mixing bugs in embedded or robotics software
• compute derived quantities like speed from distance and time with type safety

When to choose

• you write C++ and want type-safe physical quantities with zero runtime conversion overhead
• you need a dependency-free, header-only unit library
• you want unit literals and arithmetic that read like handwritten equations
• you need a wide catalog of units and physical constants

When to avoid

• you need runtime-configurable or user-defined unit systems parsed at runtime
• you work in a language other than C++ or must support pre-C++23 compilers
• you only need simple one-off conversions where a type system is overkill

Facets

library · maturity active

serialization math developer-tools developer-tools simulation cross-platform cpp cross-platform windows units-of-measure dimensional-analysis unit-conversion header-only template-metaprogramming compile-time cpp23 physical-quantities no-dependencies algorithms linux macos

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