Keyboard shortcuts

Press ← or → to navigate between chapters

Press S or / to search in the book

Press ? to show this help

Press Esc to hide this help

Introduction

Unit Template Library (UTL) is an easy to use, header-only C++17 library for type-safe SI units.

Every quantity is represented by its seven SI base dimension exponents (time, length, mass, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance, luminous intensity) plus an eighth angle pseudo-dimension (rad = angle¹, sr = angle²), all encoded as template parameters. The compiler tracks dimensions through arithmetic, so adding a Length to a Time is a compile-time error, while dividing a Length by a Time yields a Velocity.

The library is the successor of the Robotic Template Library.

Design goals

  • Type safety — dimension errors are caught at compile time.
  • Zero overhead — a unit is exactly one float or double at runtime.
  • Header-only — nothing to build or link; include and go.

License

MIT License, Copyright (c) 2024 Adam Ligocki.

Feedback

For technical feedback, bug reports, or feature proposals please use the GitHub issue tracker.