5-1-Math.md

5.1 Math

5.1.2 Exercises

1. Look at the man pages for bc.

   man bc

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2. Try doing some math in bc interactively.

   bc -l

   When we are done, we type quit or we press ctrl + D

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3. Try writing some equations in a file and then provide that file as an argument to bc.

   We write some equations in a file

   echo "22 / 7" > equ.txt
   echo "3 + 4" >> equ.txt
   echo "5.2 * 6" >> equ.txt

   We can now use one of two methods

   Method 1: Directly running bc with the file as an argument

   bc -l equ.txt # Will enter the interactive mode

   or

   bc -l < equ.txt # Won't enter the interactive mode

   Method 2: Pipe the file contents as arguments to the bc command

   cat equ.txt | bc -l # Won't enter the interactive mode