Transformation between eras uses the scale
, epoch
, direction
and unit
parameters of the era definition. NA
values for any of these parameters in
the source or destination era will cause an error. This is most often
encountered when either are measured in 'radiocarbon years', which cannot be
related to a calendar time scale without
calibration or
un-calibration.
The transformation function is exact and treats years as a real number
scale. This means that transformations between eras with different year
units (e.g. Gregorian to Julian) and/or epochs not aligned to 1 January
in the Gregorian calendar (e.g. Common Era to Islamic calendars) will likely
return non-integer values. The precision
argument provides a
convenient way to round the result if you do not need this level of
precision. It is also useful for working around the ambiguous definition of
'present' in various geological time-scales.