PHP Units & Dimensions Library Development by Khaled AlamPHP Units & Dimensions Library Development by Khaled Alam

PHP Units & Dimensions Library Development

Khaled Alam

Software Engineer

PHP

Computer Software

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Posted Jul 14, 2025

Developed a PHP library for units and dimensions with dimensional analysis.

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Unit

PHP Units & Dimensions Library

A lightweight, type-safe PHP library for working with quantities, units, and dimensional analysis. Inspired by scientific computing needs, this library lets you define units, register them globally, perform arithmetic with dimension checking, and convert across compatible units.

Features

Immutable objects

Dimensionally-aware arithmetic (add, subtract, multiply, divide)

Automatic conversion between compatible units (e.g., cm to m)

Support for compound units (e.g., m/s, kg⋅m²/s²)

Enum-powered unit naming (Name enum)

Custom unit registry

Installation

composer require khaledalam/unit

Basic Usage

<?php
// test.php

// __construct(string $name, Name|string $symbol, float $factor, Dimension $dimension)

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

use KhaledAlam\Unit\Unit;
use KhaledAlam\Unit\Name;
use KhaledAlam\Unit\Dimension;
use KhaledAlam\Unit\Quantity;
use KhaledAlam\Unit\UnitRegistry;

// Register base units
UnitRegistry::register(new Unit(Name::M->value, Name::M, 1.0, new Dimension(['L' => 1])));

UnitRegistry::register(new Unit(Name::CM->value, Name::CM, 0.01, new Dimension(['L' => 1])));

// Create quantities
$length1 = Quantity::from(2.0, 'm');
$length2 = Quantity::from(100.0, 'cm');

// Add quantities (auto conversion)
$sum = $length1->add($length2); // Result: 3.0 m

echo $sum; // "3 m"

?>

output:

% php main.php
3 m

Arithmetic Support

$velocity = Quantity::from(10, 'm')->divide(Quantity::from(2, 's'));  // 5 m/s
$area = Quantity::from(2, 'm')->multiply(Quantity::from(3, 'm'));     // 6 m²

All operations return new Quantity objects with proper dimensions and units.

Unit Registration

Define and register your own units:

UnitRegistry::register(new Unit('inch', Name::INCH, 0.0254, new Dimension(['L' => 1])));

Exception Handling

Operations on incompatible dimensions will throw an exception:

$mass = Quantity::from(5, 'kg');
$time = Quantity::from(3, 's');

$mass->add($time); // InvalidArgumentException

Running Tests

This project uses PHP-internal's built-in run-tests.php format.

php run-tests.php tests/ --show-diff

./vendor/bin/phpunit \
    --configuration phpunit.xml.dist \
    --testsuite=unit

Each test follows .phpt format and validates expected behavior.

Project Structure

src/
  └── Unit/
       ├── Quantity.php
       ├── Unit.php
       ├── Dimension.php
       ├── UnitRegistry.php
       └── Name.php (enum)

tests/
  ├── add/
  ├── convert/
  ├── divide/
  └── ...

About

Built by Khaled Alam to bring better scientific and data modeling features to PHP developers.