13.1.109 UomSymbol
| Topic Version | 1 | Published | 11/11/2016 | ||
| For Standard | COM v2.1 | ||||
| Type: | Class | Stereotype: | «XSDsimpleType» | ||
This type specifies a character string of length at least one, and restricted such that it must not contain any of the following characters: ":" (colon), " " (space), (newline), (carriage return), (tab). This allows values corresponding to familiar abbreviations, such as "kg", "m/s", etc.
It is recommended that the symbol be an identifier for a unit of measure as specified in the "Unified Code of Units of Measure" (UCUM) (http://aurora.regenstrief.org/UCUM). This provides a set of symbols and a grammar for constructing identifiers for units of measure that are unique, and may be easily entered with a keyboard supporting the limited character set known as 7-bit ASCII. ISO 2955 formerly provided a specification with this scope, but was withdrawn in 2001. UCUM largely follows ISO 2955 with modifications to remove ambiguities and other problems.