Units of Measure [Visio 2003 SDK Documentation]

In general, the formulas of cell elements that represent some numeric value (for example, the shape position, a dimension, or an angle) require a number-unit pair that consists of a number and the unit type that is needed to interpret the number. In DatadiagramML, however, even though the unit type information is stored, the value of an element is expressed in whatever the appropriate internal units are for that value. An internal unit is the unit of measure used by Microsoft Office Visio to represent a particular type of value and is the value Visio writes to DatadiagramML files.

For example, values representing units that are a measurement of length are expressed as floating-point numbers in inches, because the inch is the internal unit used by Visio to represent length. Therefore, if an element has a value of "2 feet", its Unit attribute is 'FT' for "feet" and its value is the number 24.

Other units, such as date/time, are expressed as formatted strings. In the case of date/time, the unit is a string, such as "2004-12-20T23:00:00".

If a unit of measure is explicitly set, and if it is different from the default unit for the cell, Microsoft Office Visio writes out the Unit attribute in DatadiagramML files. If no Unit attribute is present in an element that represents a cell, Visio will use the default unit for that element.

For more information about how units of measure work in Visio, see About units of measure in the Microsoft Office Visio ShapeSheet Reference.

The following tables describe valid units of measure and provide information about internal units and how they are expressed in a DatadiagramML file.

Area, distance, and typographical units of measure

The values of these unit types are expressed as floating-point values in inches (internal units). Therefore, a value of "2 feet" would be expressed as:

  <Width Unit='FT'>24</Width>

  <Size>0.16666666666667</Size>

Note  Units of measure that represent an area (acre and hectare) are expressed in square inches.

Angular units of measure

Angle values are expressed as floating-point values in radians (internal units).

Therefore, 180 fractional degrees appears as the following:

  <Angle Unit='DEG'>3.1415926535898</Angle>

Duration units of measure

Values of this unit type are expressed as floating-point values in elapsed days. (Days are the internal units for time). For example, the C element below contains the elapsed days between the dates stored in the A and B elements.

  <A Unit='DATE' F='Date(1969,9,12)'>1969-09-12T00:00:00</A>
<B Unit='DATE' F='Date(1969,9,13)'>1969-09-13T00:00:00</B>
<C Unit='ED' F='Scratch.B1-Scratch.A1'>1</C>
					

Date/time units of measure

Values of this unit type are expressed as string values written out in the ISO 8601 format:

yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm[:ss[.ss]]

Notes

• The uppercase letter "T" is a required delimiter between the date portion and the time portion.
• The date portion must be complete: a four-digit year, a dash, a two-digit month, a dash, and a two-digit day.
• The time portion must include a two-digit hour (based on a 24-hour clock), a colon, and a two-digit minute. The time can optionally include another colon and two-digit seconds. After the optional seconds, there can be a dot, followed by digits representing fractional seconds. Fractional seconds can be as precise as nanoseconds.

For example:

<A Unit='DATE'>2004-09-12T12:34:12.0543</A>

Miscellaneous units of measure

Values of these unit types are expressed as strings. The following table provides an example of each unit type.

  <A Unit='BOOL'>1</A>

  <A Unit='COLOR'>#00FF00</A>

  <A Unit='COLOR'>3</A>

  <A Unit='CY'>234.4500USD</A>

  <A Unit='GUID'>{4A1A0046-7A0D-4395-99CA-9939AD2D567E}</A>

  <A Unit='MULTIDIM'>1728 IN^3</A>

  <E Unit='NURBS'>NURBS(2.3,2,0,0,0.6,-1.1,0,1)</E>

  <A Unit='PER'>0.5</A>

  <A Unit='PNT'>PNT(2,3)</A>

  <E Unit='POLYLINE'>POLYLINE(0,0,0,1)</E>