= Systeme - Dimensional declaration and conversion
=== Now with more drachm!

Systeme provides an extensive but intuitive library of convenience methods for handling and passing around numeric data that represents dimensioned units (such as length, mass, and volume). Besides trimming down your code and making it more readable, it simplifies the task of storing data such that all values are stored in their standard SI base unit (meter, kilogram, etc).

= Usage

=== Declarations

Declaration methods are the basis for utilizing systeme. Whenever a Numeric is declared with a systeme method, it will return an equivalent value in the SI standard base unit. These methods can be taken advantage of in several ways:

	height_of_eiffel_tower = 325.meters
	=> 325
	# 325 already represents the SI standard unit meter, so this just helps you read your code more easily

	10.kilometers
	=> 10000 # as in, 10 kilometers equals 10000 meters
	# This allows you to quickly convert a number to it's equivalent base unit for storage
	
	120.miles + 14.furlongs + 191.megameters
	=> 191195937.632 # this value is in meters
	# Declarations also make otherwise annoying calculations a snap
	
Systeme supports the five SI base units (meter, kilogram, ampere, second, kelvin) and all prefixed derivatives (pico-, nano-, kilo-, terra-, giga-, etc). Declarations can be made using any of a number of methods provided by these units.

	10.meter == 10.meters == 10.m
	10.kilogram == 10.kilograms == 10.kg
	
A growing number of U.S, Imperial, deprecated, and other non international standard units are also supported.

	10.pounds == 10.pound = 10.lb == 10.lbs == 10.lbm
	10.inches == 10.inch == 10.in
	10.foot == 10.feet == 10.foots == 10.ft
	
=== Conversions

Conversions allow you to display or pass data in a unit other than the SI base. The set of methods for conversions is identical to declarations, but with each one prefixed by 'in_'. By declaring the numeric before converting it, any unit can be converted to any other unit. Non-declared numerics will be presumed to already be in their SI base unit

	1000.meters.in_kilometer
	=> 1
	16.oz.in_lb
	=> 1
	5280.in_miles
	=> 3.28083989501312
	# 5280 was presumed to be in meters, if you were looking for a result of 1 you should do 5280.feet.in_miles

= Installation

=== As a gem

The official distributions of this gem are available on RubyForge under the project name systeme

==== this will be available soon

	$ gem install systeme
	
Development can be followed on GitHub at http://www.gihub.com/farski/systeme

	$ gem install farski-systeme

= Credits

Systeme is maintained by Chris Kalafarski

= License

Systeme is Copyright © 2008 Christopher P Kalafarski. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the LICENSE file.