Unix: Visual QuickStart Guide

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 15.3.

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 15.3).
3.	Quit bc when you're done.

Tip

You can tell bc to calculate expressions within a file with bcbcfile. (Of course, replace bcfile with the real file name.) Then, bc waits for more ...