Calculating with bc

Calculating with bc

Unix even offers a handy calculator utility that lets you...er, um...calculate things. Just use bc, as shown in Code Listing 15.2.

Code Listing 15.2. Using the bc utility, you can calculate and calculate and calculate...

  xmission> bc   6*5   30   xmission> 

To Calculate with bc:

1.	bc At the shell prompt, type bc. You'll find yourself at a blank line, waiting for math to do.
2.	6*5 Enter the numbers, operators, expressions, or whatever you want to calculate. Use + to add, - to subtract, * to multiply, and / to divide. The answer appears on the next line (Code Listing 15.2).
3.	Quit bc when you're done.

Tips

• You can tell bc to calculate expressions within a file with bc filename.(Of course, replace filename with the real filename.) Then, bc waits for more to do from the command line.

• Type man bc for more details about bc's capabilities.