Spurious '?' symbol in unit label

[JKSH]

Hi,

I'm running LabVIEW 2012 on Windows 7. I have a numeric control (Silver), and I want to attach a Unit Label to it. When I type in "mL" (millilitres), it transforms into "m?L". It happens to some units ("kbps" -> "k?bps", "mmHg" -> "m?mHg), but not others ("kPa" is fine)

What's going on?

[P@Anand]

I guess this is happening because they are not the standard unit notations. You can find the standard units by right clicking the unit label and go to Build unit string (In your case use ml instead of mL)

[JKSH]

😞

"standard unit notations"? 'L' is an accepted SI symbol -- I don't think we can get more "standard" than that!

Thank you for clarifying what LabVIEW is doing though.

My client's publications use the capital L to represent a litre, so we'd like the application to stick to "mL" for consistency. I guess I'll do without Unit Labels.

[P@Anand]

I would suggest you to go for a free label instead of using the unit label because you will not be able to perform calculation when the other element is not of the same unit. If you use a free label you don't have to worry about all these things.

[GerdW]

Hi JKSH,

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"standard unit notations"? 'L' is an accepted SI symbol -- I don't think we can get more "standard" than that!

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- "l" (lowercase L) is NOT a standard SI unit, see here or here

- using uppercase L is just to avoid confusion with other chars like I,1,!,|

- you always have the option of using the unit dialog to set your preferred unit...

[JKSH]

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P@Anand wrote:

I would suggest you to go for a free label instead of using the unit label because you will not be able to perform calculation when the other element is not of the same unit. If you use a free label you don't have to worry about all these things.

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Good idea 🙂 I was quite happy when I first discovered the Unit Label feature, as free labels were not inherently attached to the control itself. But, it looks like free labels will serve us best in this case.

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@GerdW wrote:

Hi JKSH,

---

"standard unit notations"? 'L' is an accepted SI symbol -- I don't think we can get more "standard" than that!

---

- "l" (lowercase L) is NOT a standard SI unit, see here or here

- using uppercase L is just to avoid confusion with other chars like I,1,!,|

- you always have the option of using the unit dialog to set your preferred unit...

---

I tried to avoid saying that the litre is an SI unit, but my wording still came out ambiguous. 'L' is "accepted for use with the SI," which I interpreted as an endoresement of its ubiquity and hence its "standardness". Anyway, 'l' is no more "standard" than 'L', so I was disappointed that the latter, which is less risky than the former (and which we personally prefer ;)), isn't included.

Anyway, thank you for highlighting the fact that that I can customize units. That might come in handy!

[pincpanter]

To "attach" the unit to your control you may:

a) use the control's Caption (if not used otherwise)

b) use a free label and Group it to the control (the Group button is on the toolbar)

[Yamaeda]

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@GerdW wrote:

- "l" (lowercase L) is NOT a standard SI unit, see here or here

- using uppercase L is just to avoid confusion with other chars like I,1,!,|

- you always have the option of using the unit dialog to set your preferred unit...

---

How could litre not be a SI unit, i'm quite baffled. o.O

Something learned today. 🙂

/Y

[GerdW]

Hi Yamaeda,

SI unit for volume is m³. That's it.

What else do you need? 😄 (Don't get me started on gal, pt, barrel, cup, gill, Ster, ...)