Re: how to calculate fractions with let?

From: Chris F.A. Johnson (cfajohnson_at_gmail.com)
Date: 03/21/05 

Date: 21 Mar 2005 17:44:47 GMT

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 at 17:37 GMT, samuels@red.seas.upenn.edu () wrote:
> hi,
> for the arithmetic expression 7/3, what unix function/command will
> show me the correct value of 2.33 and not just 2 like let?

   Most shells do not support fractional arithmetic (ksh93 is an
   exception).

   You need to use an external command such as awk or bc.

   For example, I use this function:

calc()
{
  awk 'BEGIN { OFMT="%f"; print '"$*"'; exit}'
}

   Once it's defined you can use:

$ calc 7/3
2.333333 

-- 
    Chris F.A. Johnson                  http://cfaj.freeshell.org/shell
    ===================================================================
    My code (if any) in this post is copyright 2005, Chris F.A. Johnson
    and may be copied under the terms of the GNU General Public License

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