The three units of weight I’m familiar with are pounds, kilograms, and stone. For me, stone is the odd one. I’ve heard it used in Britain and it’s completely baffling to me, often requiring that I whip out a calculator to see what “14 stone” really means. Better, I could write code that converts between pounds, kilograms, and stone, which is the goal of this month’s Exercise.
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\nFor example, if I hear “14 stone” on a British TV show, I must do the math in my head: One stone is 14 pounds, so 14 stone is 14 × 14, which is (uses calculator) 196 pounds.<\/p>\n
To make such a conversion in a computer program, you could input information like this:<\/p>\n
This cryptic text reads, “Convert 14 stone into pounds.” The value Or if you wanted to know how many kilograms are in 196 pounds, you type:<\/p>\n Which translates as, “Convert 196 pounds into kilograms.” The computer dutifully spits out the value 88.9 kilos.<\/p>\n Your task for this month’s Exercise is to write such a program.<\/p>\n The code prompts for input, as in this example:<\/p>\n The text input (standard input) is examined to pluck out a value from the string. Then the code examines the next two characters to determine the conversion. Invalid input is rejected.<\/p>\n The conversions required are:<\/p>\n Kilos to Pounds: 2.20462 This Exercise began as a simple conversion table, but I decided to spice it up and have the code determine the conversion based upon input. This addition is the real challenge, not only to properly convert the string input into a value but to validate and interpret the two conversion characters.<\/p>\n Please try this Exercise on your own before you peek to see my solution<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The computer masterfully converts weight measurements, providing you supply an initial value and tell it which measurements to convert to and from. Continue reading 14SP<\/code><\/p>\n14<\/code> is the quantity, and the single-letter suffixes control the conversion: S<\/code> for stone into P<\/code> for pounds.<\/p>\n196PK<\/code><\/p>\nType a value to convert, suffixed by conversion types:
\nK - kilos, P - pounds, S - stones
\nExample: 2.0PK (convert 2.0 pounds to kilograms)
\nConvert:<\/code><\/p>\n
\nKilos to Stone: 0.127473
\nPounds to Kilos: 0.453592
\nPounds to Stone: 0.714286
\nStone to Kilos: 6.35029
\nStone to Pounds: 14.0<\/p>\n