Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!husc6!im4u!ut-sally!ut-emx!jjr
From: jjr@ut-emx.UUCP (Jeff Rodriguez)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Floating-Point Arithmetic in a Csh Script
Message-ID: <1748@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 17 Apr 88 15:22:26 GMT
Reply-To: jjr@ut-emx.UUCP (Jeff Rodriguez)
Organization: Dept. of Elec. Engr.; U. of TX at Austin
Lines: 25

I am trying to do floating-point arithmetic in a csh script for 4.3 BSD.
Since "@ x = 2.3 + 4.5" won't work, I'm using bc.
But I can't find a nice way to get bc's output into a shell variable
without using a temporary file.

This method does not work:
     #!/bin/csh
     set x = `bc << END`
     scale = 5
     $1 + $2
     END

This is the best that I've come up with:
     #!/bin/csh
     # This csh script computes x = $1 + $2,
     # where $1 and $2 are floating-point numbers.
     bc << END > temp
     scale = 5
     $1 + $2
     END
     set x = `cat temp`

Can anybody think of a better way?

			Jeff Rodriguez
			jjr@emx.utexas.edu