Be aware that currencies are stuck with rates from several years ago and don’t u...

duckerude · on July 9, 2020

Running `sudo units_cur` does the trick for me.

  $ units
  Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2020-05-12
  $ sudo units_cur
  $ units
  Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2020-07-09

(GNU units, packed by Debian)

throwaway8941 · on July 9, 2020

In case anyone else needs this:

  # systemctl edit units-currency-update.service
  
  [Unit]
  Description=Update units(1) currency rates
  
  [Service]
  Type=oneshot
  Nice=19
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/units_cur
  
  # systemctl edit units-currency-update.timer
  
  [Unit]
  Description=Update units(1) currency rates
  
  [Timer]
  OnCalendar=daily
  AccuracySec=3h
  Persistent=true
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=timers.target
  
  # systemctl daemon-reload
  # systemctl enable units-currency-update.timer

throwaway744678 · on July 9, 2020

Looking at the source of the default configuration (cat /usr/share/misc/units.lib), I believe it only defines conversions for currencies that are pegged to another one (mainly to EUR or USD).

    You have: 10 franc
    You want: dollar
    conformability error
     1.5244902 euro
     1 usdollar
    You have: 10 franc
    You want: euro
     * 1.5244902
     / 0.655957

zerocrates · on July 9, 2020

I'm tempted to say it shouldn't even attempt to support currency conversion, as constantly in flux as it is.

gerdesj · on July 9, 2020

  $ units
  Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2019-06-05

divbzero · on July 9, 2020

I wonder if this could be addressed with periodic updates.

ornornor · on July 9, 2020

I didn’t look too deep into it, my understanding was that the source it uses to update itself has been taken offline. There are workarounds involving data massaging and a cron but honestly that’s a lot more work than typing “1000 chf to usd” into ddg and getting the converted amount. But if you know something I don’t, maybe you could share for everyone’s benefit?