Re: bc

[Rick Pasotto <rick@niof.net>]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2002 at 08:37:00AM -0500, Oleg wrote:
> OK I would like to know how this monstrosity made it into Debian Stable:
> 
> $ whatis bc
> bc (1)               - An arbitrary precision calculator language
> $ bc
> bc 1.06
> Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
> For details type `warranty'.
> 6.2/0.3
> 20
> 
> I have looked into the man page, and nothing there indicates this kind of 
> nonsense.  I hereby propose renaming the package into "a calculator with a 
> very arbitrary precision"

I found this in the man page:

<quote>
There are two attributes of num- bers, the length and the scale.  The
length is the total number of sig- nificant  decimal  digits in a number
and the scale is the total number of decimal digits after the decimal
point.
</quote>

and

<quote>
The default value of scale is 0.
</quote>

Thus:

bc 1.06
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'. 
scale=5
6.2/0.3
20.66666

-- 
"Republican politicians give us the equivalent of 1-900 phone sex."
        --- Jo Jorgensen
    Rick Pasotto    rickp@telocity.com    http://www.niof.net