Sparweb
Aerospace
- May 21, 2003
- 5,109
I've been using Smath (not entirely voluntarily) for a couple of years now.
Some of the sheets I've written in the past are now broken after a recent update and I'm completely stumped about the reason why.
Has anyone encountered problems getting a formula to solve with units being present, and canceled, within an exponent?
Normally, in an exponent, there cannot be any units. So 10^[sup]3.4[/sup] is fine (for obvious reasons) and 10^[sup](3.5*ft)[/sup] is bad, but 10^[sup](3.4*ft/2*ft)[/sup] should also be fine.
At least, it was...
I have rewritten the equation from scratch, I have created an intermediate variable to "hold" the value of the exponent before using it in the exponential equation, AND confirmed that the units are canceled before being used in that equation. AND I have written the equation as unitless numbers to confirm that the value can be found. But this is not automatic. It only works by manually over-typing the value.
I use Smath because it can include units in calculations. Including units in formulas is the WHOLE POINT of bothering with this semi-OK software, otherwise I would just use Excel or Python or MSWord. Losing the functionality of putting variables into exponents would seriously hamper any further interest in Smath. This is the 3rd time in 2 years that I've updated Smath to find it breaks some function that I use extensively.
I can't share a copy of the proprietary file. If absolutely necessary, I may be able to "trim" it to just the broken pieces.
Some of the sheets I've written in the past are now broken after a recent update and I'm completely stumped about the reason why.
Has anyone encountered problems getting a formula to solve with units being present, and canceled, within an exponent?
Normally, in an exponent, there cannot be any units. So 10^[sup]3.4[/sup] is fine (for obvious reasons) and 10^[sup](3.5*ft)[/sup] is bad, but 10^[sup](3.4*ft/2*ft)[/sup] should also be fine.
At least, it was...
I have rewritten the equation from scratch, I have created an intermediate variable to "hold" the value of the exponent before using it in the exponential equation, AND confirmed that the units are canceled before being used in that equation. AND I have written the equation as unitless numbers to confirm that the value can be found. But this is not automatic. It only works by manually over-typing the value.
I use Smath because it can include units in calculations. Including units in formulas is the WHOLE POINT of bothering with this semi-OK software, otherwise I would just use Excel or Python or MSWord. Losing the functionality of putting variables into exponents would seriously hamper any further interest in Smath. This is the 3rd time in 2 years that I've updated Smath to find it breaks some function that I use extensively.
I can't share a copy of the proprietary file. If absolutely necessary, I may be able to "trim" it to just the broken pieces.
