bc(1p) — Linux manual page

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BC(1P)                  POSIX Programmer's Manual                 BC(1P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
       or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       bc — arbitrary-precision arithmetic language

SYNOPSIS         top

       bc [-l] [file...]

DESCRIPTION         top

       The bc utility shall implement an arbitrary precision calculator.
       It shall take input from any files given, then read from the
       standard input. If the standard input and standard output to bc
       are attached to a terminal, the invocation of bc shall be
       considered to be interactive, causing behavioral constraints
       described in the following sections.

OPTIONS         top

       The bc utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
       POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following option shall be supported:

       -l        (The letter ell.) Define the math functions and
                 initialize scale to 20, instead of the default zero;
                 see the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

OPERANDS         top

       The following operand shall be supported:

       file      A pathname of a text file containing bc program
                 statements. After all files have been read, bc shall
                 read the standard input.

STDIN         top

       See the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES         top

       Input files shall be text files containing a sequence of
       comments, statements, and function definitions that shall be
       executed as they are read.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       bc:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
                 internationalization variables used to determine the
                 values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
                 of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of
                 sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
                 example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte
                 characters in arguments and input files).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
                 format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
                 standard error.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       Default.

STDOUT         top

       The output of the bc utility shall be controlled by the program
       read, and consist of zero or more lines containing the value of
       all executed expressions without assignments. The radix and
       precision of the output shall be controlled by the values of the
       obase and scale variables; see the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.

STDERR         top

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

   Grammar
       The grammar in this section and the lexical conventions in the
       following section shall together describe the syntax for bc
       programs. The general conventions for this style of grammar are
       described in Section 1.3, Grammar Conventions.  A valid program
       can be represented as the non-terminal symbol program in the
       grammar. This formal syntax shall take precedence over the text
       syntax description.

           %token    EOF NEWLINE STRING LETTER NUMBER

           %token    MUL_OP
           /*        '*', '/', '%'                           */

           %token    ASSIGN_OP
           /*        '=', '+=', '-=', '*=', '/=', '%=', '^=' */

           %token    REL_OP
           /*        '==', '<=', '>=', '!=', '<', '>'        */

           %token    INCR_DECR
           /*        '++', '--'                              */

           %token    Define    Break    Quit    Length
           /*        'define', 'break', 'quit', 'length'     */

           %token    Return    For    If    While    Sqrt
           /*        'return', 'for', 'if', 'while', 'sqrt'  */

           %token    Scale    Ibase    Obase    Auto
           /*        'scale', 'ibase', 'obase', 'auto'       */

           %start    program

           %%

           program              : EOF
                                | input_item program
                                ;

           input_item           : semicolon_list NEWLINE
                                | function
                                ;

           semicolon_list       : /* empty */
                                | statement
                                | semicolon_list ';' statement
                                | semicolon_list ';'
                                ;

           statement_list       : /* empty */
                                | statement
                                | statement_list NEWLINE
                                | statement_list NEWLINE statement
                                | statement_list ';'
                                | statement_list ';' statement
                                ;

           statement            : expression
                                | STRING
                                | Break
                                | Quit
                                | Return
                                | Return '(' return_expression ')'
                                | For '(' expression ';'
                                      relational_expression ';'
                                      expression ')' statement
                                | If '(' relational_expression ')' statement
                                | While '(' relational_expression ')' statement
                                | '{' statement_list '}'
                                ;

           function             : Define LETTER '(' opt_parameter_list ')'
                                      '{' NEWLINE opt_auto_define_list
                                      statement_list '}'
                                ;

           opt_parameter_list   : /* empty */
                                | parameter_list
                                ;

           parameter_list       : LETTER
                                | define_list ',' LETTER
                                ;

           opt_auto_define_list : /* empty */
                                | Auto define_list NEWLINE
                                | Auto define_list ';'
                                ;

           define_list          : LETTER
                                | LETTER '[' ']'
                                | define_list ',' LETTER
                                | define_list ',' LETTER '[' ']'
                                ;

           opt_argument_list    : /* empty */
                                | argument_list
                                ;

           argument_list        : expression
                                | LETTER '[' ']' ',' argument_list
                                ;

           relational_expression : expression
                                | expression REL_OP expression
                                ;

           return_expression    : /* empty */
                                | expression
                                ;

           expression           : named_expression
                                | NUMBER
                                | '(' expression ')'
                                | LETTER '(' opt_argument_list ')'
                                | '-' expression
                                | expression '+' expression
                                | expression '-' expression
                                | expression MUL_OP expression
                                | expression '^' expression
                                | INCR_DECR named_expression
                                | named_expression INCR_DECR
                                | named_expression ASSIGN_OP expression
                                | Length '(' expression ')'
                                | Sqrt '(' expression ')'
                                | Scale '(' expression ')'
                                ;

           named_expression     : LETTER
                                | LETTER '[' expression ']'
                                | Scale
                                | Ibase
                                | Obase
                                ;

   Lexical Conventions in bc
       The lexical conventions for bc programs, with respect to the
       preceding grammar, shall be as follows:

        1. Except as noted, bc shall recognize the longest possible
           token or delimiter beginning at a given point.

        2. A comment shall consist of any characters beginning with the
           two adjacent characters "/*" and terminated by the next
           occurrence of the two adjacent characters "*/".  Comments
           shall have no effect except to delimit lexical tokens.

        3. The <newline> shall be recognized as the token NEWLINE.

        4. The token STRING shall represent a string constant; it shall
           consist of any characters beginning with the double-quote
           character ('"') and terminated by another occurrence of the
           double-quote character. The value of the string is the
           sequence of all characters between, but not including, the
           two double-quote characters. All characters shall be taken
           literally from the input, and there is no way to specify a
           string containing a double-quote character. The length of the
           value of each string shall be limited to {BC_STRING_MAX}
           bytes.

        5. A <blank> shall have no effect except as an ordinary
           character if it appears within a STRING token, or to delimit
           a lexical token other than STRING.

        6. The combination of a <backslash> character immediately
           followed by a <newline> shall have no effect other than to
           delimit lexical tokens with the following exceptions:

            *  It shall be interpreted as the character sequence
               "\<newline>" in STRING tokens.

            *  It shall be ignored as part of a multi-line NUMBER token.

        7. The token NUMBER shall represent a numeric constant. It shall
           be recognized by the following grammar:

               NUMBER  : integer
                       | '.' integer
                       | integer '.'
                       | integer '.' integer
                       ;

               integer : digit
                       | integer digit
                       ;

               digit   : 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
                       | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F
                       ;

        8. The value of a NUMBER token shall be interpreted as a numeral
           in the base specified by the value of the internal register
           ibase (described below). Each of the digit characters shall
           have the value from 0 to 15 in the order listed here, and the
           <period> character shall represent the radix point. The
           behavior is undefined if digits greater than or equal to the
           value of ibase appear in the token. However, note the
           exception for single-digit values being assigned to ibase and
           obase themselves, in Operations in bc.

        9. The following keywords shall be recognized as tokens:
           auto     ibase    length   return   while
           break    if       obase    scale
           define   for      quit     sqrt

       10. Any of the following characters occurring anywhere except
           within a keyword shall be recognized as the token LETTER:

               a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

       11. The following single-character and two-character sequences
           shall be recognized as the token ASSIGN_OP:

               =   +=   -=   *=   /=   %=   ^=

       12. If an '=' character, as the beginning of a token, is followed
           by a '-' character with no intervening delimiter, the
           behavior is undefined.

       13. The following single-characters shall be recognized as the
           token MUL_OP:

               *   /   %

       14. The following single-character and two-character sequences
           shall be recognized as the token REL_OP:

               ==   <=   >=   !=   <   >

       15. The following two-character sequences shall be recognized as
           the token INCR_DECR:

               ++   --

       16. The following single characters shall be recognized as tokens
           whose names are the character:

               <newline>  (  )  ,  +  -  ;  [  ]  ^  {  }

       17. The token EOF is returned when the end of input is reached.

   Operations in bc
       There are three kinds of identifiers: ordinary identifiers, array
       identifiers, and function identifiers.  All three types consist
       of single lowercase letters. Array identifiers shall be followed
       by square brackets ("[]").  An array subscript is required except
       in an argument or auto list.  Arrays are singly dimensioned and
       can contain up to {BC_DIM_MAX} elements. Indexing shall begin at
       zero so an array is indexed from 0 to {BC_DIM_MAX}-1.  Subscripts
       shall be truncated to integers. The application shall ensure that
       function identifiers are followed by parentheses, possibly
       enclosing arguments. The three types of identifiers do not
       conflict.

       The following table summarizes the rules for precedence and
       associativity of all operators. Operators on the same line shall
       have the same precedence; rows are in order of decreasing
       precedence.

                            Table: Operators in bc
                ┌───────────────────────────┬───────────────┐
                │         Operator          Associativity │
                ├───────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
                │ ++, --                    │ N/A           │
                │ unary -                   │ N/A           │
                │ ^                         │ Right to left │
                │ *, /, %                   │ Left to right │
                │ +, binary -               │ Left to right │
                │ =, +=, -=, *=, /=, %=, ^= │ Right to left │
                │ ==, <=, >=, !=, <, >      │ None          │
                └───────────────────────────┴───────────────┘

       Each expression or named expression has a scale, which is the
       number of decimal digits that shall be maintained as the
       fractional portion of the expression.

       Named expressions are places where values are stored. Named
       expressions shall be valid on the left side of an assignment. The
       value of a named expression shall be the value stored in the
       place named. Simple identifiers and array elements are named
       expressions; they have an initial value of zero and an initial
       scale of zero.

       The internal registers scale, ibase, and obase are all named
       expressions. The scale of an expression consisting of the name of
       one of these registers shall be zero; values assigned to any of
       these registers are truncated to integers. The scale register
       shall contain a global value used in computing the scale of
       expressions (as described below). The value of the register scale
       is limited to 0 ≤ scale ≤ {BC_SCALE_MAX} and shall have a default
       value of zero. The ibase and obase registers are the input and
       output number radix, respectively. The value of ibase shall be
       limited to:

           2 ≤ ibase ≤ 16

       The value of obase shall be limited to:

           2 ≤ obase ≤ {BC_BASE_MAX}

       When either ibase or obase is assigned a single digit value from
       the list in Lexical Conventions in bc, the value shall be assumed
       in hexadecimal. (For example, ibase=A sets to base ten,
       regardless of the current ibase value.) Otherwise, the behavior
       is undefined when digits greater than or equal to the value of
       ibase appear in the input. Both ibase and obase shall have
       initial values of 10.

       Internal computations shall be conducted as if in decimal,
       regardless of the input and output bases, to the specified number
       of decimal digits. When an exact result is not achieved (for
       example, scale=0; 3.2/1), the result shall be truncated.

       For all values of obase specified by this volume of POSIX.1‐2017,
       bc shall output numeric values by performing each of the
       following steps in order:

        1. If the value is less than zero, a <hyphen-minus> ('-')
           character shall be output.

        2. One of the following is output, depending on the numerical
           value:

            *  If the absolute value of the numerical value is greater
               than or equal to one, the integer portion of the value
               shall be output as a series of digits appropriate to
               obase (as described below), most significant digit first.
               The most significant non-zero digit shall be output next,
               followed by each successively less significant digit.

            *  If the absolute value of the numerical value is less than
               one but greater than zero and the scale of the numerical
               value is greater than zero, it is unspecified whether the
               character 0 is output.

            *  If the numerical value is zero, the character 0 shall be
               output.

        3. If the scale of the value is greater than zero and the
           numeric value is not zero, a <period> character shall be
           output, followed by a series of digits appropriate to obase
           (as described below) representing the most significant
           portion of the fractional part of the value. If s represents
           the scale of the value being output, the number of digits
           output shall be s if obase is 10, less than or equal to s if
           obase is greater than 10, or greater than or equal to s if
           obase is less than 10. For obase values other than 10, this
           should be the number of digits needed to represent a
           precision of 10s.

       For obase values from 2 to 16, valid digits are the first obase
       of the single characters:

           0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  A  B  C  D  E  F

       which represent the values zero to 15, inclusive, respectively.

       For bases greater than 16, each digit shall be written as a
       separate multi-digit decimal number. Each digit except the most
       significant fractional digit shall be preceded by a single
       <space>.  For bases from 17 to 100, bc shall write two-digit
       decimal numbers; for bases from 101 to 1000, three-digit decimal
       strings, and so on. For example, the decimal number 1024 in base
       25 would be written as:

            01 15 24

       and in base 125, as:

            008 024

       Very large numbers shall be split across lines with 70 characters
       per line in the POSIX locale; other locales may split at
       different character boundaries. Lines that are continued shall
       end with a <backslash>.

       A function call shall consist of a function name followed by
       parentheses containing a <comma>-separated list of expressions,
       which are the function arguments. A whole array passed as an
       argument shall be specified by the array name followed by empty
       square brackets. All function arguments shall be passed by value.
       As a result, changes made to the formal parameters shall have no
       effect on the actual arguments. If the function terminates by
       executing a return statement, the value of the function shall be
       the value of the expression in the parentheses of the return
       statement or shall be zero if no expression is provided or if
       there is no return statement.

       The result of sqrt(expression) shall be the square root of the
       expression. The result shall be truncated in the least
       significant decimal place. The scale of the result shall be the
       scale of the expression or the value of scale, whichever is
       larger.

       The result of length(expression) shall be the total number of
       significant decimal digits in the expression. The scale of the
       result shall be zero.

       The result of scale(expression) shall be the scale of the
       expression. The scale of the result shall be zero.

       A numeric constant shall be an expression. The scale shall be the
       number of digits that follow the radix point in the input
       representing the constant, or zero if no radix point appears.

       The sequence ( expression ) shall be an expression with the same
       value and scale as expression.  The parentheses can be used to
       alter the normal precedence.

       The semantics of the unary and binary operators are as follows:

       -expression
             The result shall be the negative of the expression.  The
             scale of the result shall be the scale of expression.

       The unary increment and decrement operators shall not modify the
       scale of the named expression upon which they operate. The scale
       of the result shall be the scale of that named expression.

       ++named-expression
             The named expression shall be incremented by one. The
             result shall be the value of the named expression after
             incrementing.

       --named-expression
             The named expression shall be decremented by one. The
             result shall be the value of the named expression after
             decrementing.

       named-expression++
             The named expression shall be incremented by one. The
             result shall be the value of the named expression before
             incrementing.

       named-expression--
             The named expression shall be decremented by one. The
             result shall be the value of the named expression before
             decrementing.

       The exponentiation operator, <circumflex> ('^'), shall bind right
       to left.

       expression^expression
             The result shall be the first expression raised to the
             power of the second expression.  If the second expression
             is not an integer, the behavior is undefined.  If a is the
             scale of the left expression and b is the absolute value of
             the right expression, the scale of the result shall be:

                 if b >= 0 min(a * b, max(scale, a)) if b < 0 scale

       The multiplicative operators ('*', '/', '%') shall bind left to
       right.

       expression*expression
             The result shall be the product of the two expressions. If
             a and b are the scales of the two expressions, then the
             scale of the result shall be:

                 min(a+b,max(scale,a,b))

       expression/expression
             The result shall be the quotient of the two expressions.
             The scale of the result shall be the value of scale.

       expression%expression
             For expressions a and b, a%b shall be evaluated equivalent
             to the steps:

              1. Compute a/b to current scale.

              2. Use the result to compute:

                     a - (a / b) * b

                 to scale:

                     max(scale + scale(b), scale(a))

             The scale of the result shall be:

                 max(scale + scale(b), scale(a))

             When scale is zero, the '%' operator is the mathematical
             remainder operator.

       The additive operators ('+', '-') shall bind left to right.

       expression+expression
             The result shall be the sum of the two expressions. The
             scale of the result shall be the maximum of the scales of
             the expressions.

       expression-expression
             The result shall be the difference of the two expressions.
             The scale of the result shall be the maximum of the scales
             of the expressions.

       The assignment operators ('=', "+=", "-=", "*=", "/=", "%=",
       "^=") shall bind right to left.

       named-expression=expression
             This expression shall result in assigning the value of the
             expression on the right to the named expression on the
             left. The scale of both the named expression and the result
             shall be the scale of expression.

       The compound assignment forms:

           named-expression <operator>= expression

       shall be equivalent to:

           named-expression=named-expression <operator> expression

       except that the named-expression shall be evaluated only once.

       Unlike all other operators, the relational operators ('<', '>',
       "<=", ">=", "==", "!=") shall be only valid as the object of an
       if, while, or inside a for statement.

       expression1<expression2
             The relation shall be true if the value of expression1 is
             strictly less than the value of expression2.

       expression1>expression2
             The relation shall be true if the value of expression1 is
             strictly greater than the value of expression2.

       expression1<=expression2
             The relation shall be true if the value of expression1 is
             less than or equal to the value of expression2.

       expression1>=expression2
             The relation shall be true if the value of expression1 is
             greater than or equal to the value of expression2.

       expression1==expression2
             The relation shall be true if the values of expression1 and
             expression2 are equal.

       expression1!=expression2
             The relation shall be true if the values of expression1 and
             expression2 are unequal.

       There are only two storage classes in bc: global and automatic
       (local).  Only identifiers that are local to a function need be
       declared with the auto command. The arguments to a function shall
       be local to the function.  All other identifiers are assumed to
       be global and available to all functions. All identifiers, global
       and local, have initial values of zero. Identifiers declared as
       auto shall be allocated on entry to the function and released on
       returning from the function. They therefore do not retain values
       between function calls. Auto arrays shall be specified by the
       array name followed by empty square brackets. On entry to a
       function, the old values of the names that appear as parameters
       and as automatic variables shall be pushed onto a stack. Until
       the function returns, reference to these names shall refer only
       to the new values.

       References to any of these names from other functions that are
       called from this function also refer to the new value until one
       of those functions uses the same name for a local variable.

       When a statement is an expression, unless the main operator is an
       assignment, execution of the statement shall write the value of
       the expression followed by a <newline>.

       When a statement is a string, execution of the statement shall
       write the value of the string.

       Statements separated by <semicolon> or <newline> characters shall
       be executed sequentially. In an interactive invocation of bc,
       each time a <newline> is read that satisfies the grammatical
       production:

           input_item : semicolon_list NEWLINE

       the sequential list of statements making up the semicolon_list
       shall be executed immediately and any output produced by that
       execution shall be written without any delay due to buffering.

       In an if statement (if(relation) statement), the statement shall
       be executed if the relation is true.

       The while statement (while(relation) statement) implements a loop
       in which the relation is tested; each time the relation is true,
       the statement shall be executed and the relation retested. When
       the relation is false, execution shall resume after statement.

       A for statement(for(expression; relation; expression) statement)
       shall be the same as:

           first-expression
           while (relation) {
               statement
               last-expression
           }

       The application shall ensure that all three expressions are
       present.

       The break statement shall cause termination of a for or while
       statement.

       The auto statement (auto identifier [,identifier] ...) shall
       cause the values of the identifiers to be pushed down.  The
       identifiers can be ordinary identifiers or array identifiers.
       Array identifiers shall be specified by following the array name
       by empty square brackets. The application shall ensure that the
       auto statement is the first statement in a function definition.

       A define statement:

           define LETTER ( opt_parameter_list ) {
               opt_auto_define_list
               statement_list
           }

       defines a function named LETTER.  If a function named LETTER was
       previously defined, the define statement shall replace the
       previous definition. The expression:

           LETTER ( opt_argument_list )

       shall invoke the function named LETTER.  The behavior is
       undefined if the number of arguments in the invocation does not
       match the number of parameters in the definition. Functions shall
       be defined before they are invoked. A function shall be
       considered to be defined within its own body, so recursive calls
       are valid. The values of numeric constants within a function
       shall be interpreted in the base specified by the value of the
       ibase register when the function is invoked.

       The return statements (return and return(expression)) shall cause
       termination of a function, popping of its auto variables, and
       specification of the result of the function. The first form shall
       be equivalent to return(0).  The value and scale of the result
       returned by the function shall be the value and scale of the
       expression returned.

       The quit statement (quit) shall stop execution of a bc program at
       the point where the statement occurs in the input, even if it
       occurs in a function definition, or in an if, for, or while
       statement.

       The following functions shall be defined when the -l option is
       specified:

       s( expression )
             Sine of argument in radians.

       c( expression )
             Cosine of argument in radians.

       a( expression )
             Arctangent of argument.

       l( expression )
             Natural logarithm of argument.

       e( expression )
             Exponential function of argument.

       j( expression1, expression2 )
             Bessel function of expression2 of the first kind of integer
             order expression1.

       The scale of the result returned by these functions shall be the
       value of the scale register at the time the function is invoked.
       The value of the scale register after these functions have
       completed their execution shall be the same value it had upon
       invocation. The behavior is undefined if any of these functions
       is invoked with an argument outside the domain of the
       mathematical function.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

       0         All input files were processed successfully.

       unspecified
                 An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       If any file operand is specified and the named file cannot be
       accessed, bc shall write a diagnostic message to standard error
       and terminate without any further action.

       In an interactive invocation of bc, the utility should print an
       error message and recover following any error in the input. In a
       non-interactive invocation of bc, invalid input causes undefined
       behavior.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       Automatic variables in bc do not work in exactly the same way as
       in either C or PL/1.

       For historical reasons, the exit status from bc cannot be relied
       upon to indicate that an error has occurred.  Returning zero
       after an error is possible. Therefore, bc should be used
       primarily by interactive users (who can react to error messages)
       or by application programs that can somehow validate the answers
       returned as not including error messages.

       The bc utility always uses the <period> ('.')  character to
       represent a radix point, regardless of any decimal-point
       character specified as part of the current locale. In languages
       like C or awk, the <period> character is used in program source,
       so it can be portable and unambiguous, while the locale-specific
       character is used in input and output. Because there is no
       distinction between source and input in bc, this arrangement
       would not be possible. Using the locale-specific character in
       bc's input would introduce ambiguities into the language;
       consider the following example in a locale with a <comma> as the
       decimal-point character:

           define f(a,b) {
               ...
           }
           ...

           f(1,2,3)

       Because of such ambiguities, the <period> character is used in
       input. Having input follow different conventions from output
       would be confusing in either pipeline usage or interactive usage,
       so the <period> is also used in output.

EXAMPLES         top

       In the shell, the following assigns an approximation of the first
       ten digits of 'π' to the variable x:

           x=$(printf "%s\n" 'scale = 10; 104348/33215' | bc)

       The following bc program prints the same approximation of 'π',
       with a label, to standard output:

           scale = 10
           "pi equals "
           104348 / 33215

       The following defines a function to compute an approximate value
       of the exponential function (note that such a function is
       predefined if the -l option is specified):

           scale = 20
           define e(x){
               auto a, b, c, i, s
               a = 1
               b = 1
               s = 1
               for (i = 1; 1 == 1; i++){
                   a = a*x
                   b = b*i
                   c = a/b
                   if (c == 0) {
                        return(s)
                   }
                   s = s+c
               }
           }

       The following prints approximate values of the exponential
       function of the first ten integers:

           for (i = 1; i <= 10; ++i) {
               e(i)
           }

RATIONALE         top

       The bc utility is implemented historically as a front-end
       processor for dc; dc was not selected to be part of this volume
       of POSIX.1‐2017 because bc was thought to have a more intuitive
       programmatic interface. Current implementations that implement bc
       using dc are expected to be compliant.

       The exit status for error conditions has been left unspecified
       for several reasons:

        *  The bc utility is used in both interactive and non-
           interactive situations.  Different exit codes may be
           appropriate for the two uses.

        *  It is unclear when a non-zero exit should be given; divide-
           by-zero, undefined functions, and syntax errors are all
           possibilities.

        *  It is not clear what utility the exit status has.

        *  In the 4.3 BSD, System V, and Ninth Edition implementations,
           bc works in conjunction with dc.  The dc utility is the
           parent, bc is the child. This was done to cleanly terminate
           bc if dc aborted.

       The decision to have bc exit upon encountering an inaccessible
       input file is based on the belief that bc file1 file2 is used
       most often when at least file1 contains data/function
       declarations/initializations. Having bc continue with
       prerequisite files missing is probably not useful. There is no
       implication in the CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS section that bc must
       check all its files for accessibility before opening any of them.

       There was considerable debate on the appropriateness of the
       language accepted by bc.  Several reviewers preferred to see
       either a pure subset of the C language or some changes to make
       the language more compatible with C.  While the bc language has
       some obvious similarities to C, it has never claimed to be
       compatible with any version of C. An interpreter for a subset of
       C might be a very worthwhile utility, and it could potentially
       make bc obsolete. However, no such utility is known in historical
       practice, and it was not within the scope of this volume of
       POSIX.1‐2017 to define such a language and utility. If and when
       they are defined, it may be appropriate to include them in a
       future version of this standard. This left the following
       alternatives:

        1. Exclude any calculator language from this volume of
           POSIX.1‐2017.

           The consensus of the standard developers was that a simple
           programmatic calculator language is very useful for both
           applications and interactive users. The only arguments for
           excluding any calculator were that it would become obsolete
           if and when a C-compatible one emerged, or that the absence
           would encourage the development of such a C-compatible one.
           These arguments did not sufficiently address the needs of
           current application developers.

        2. Standardize the historical dc, possibly with minor
           modifications.

           The consensus of the standard developers was that dc is a
           fundamentally less usable language and that that would be far
           too severe a penalty for avoiding the issue of being similar
           to but incompatible with C.

        3. Standardize the historical bc, possibly with minor
           modifications.

           This was the approach taken. Most of the proponents of
           changing the language would not have been satisfied until
           most or all of the incompatibilities with C were resolved.
           Since most of the changes considered most desirable would
           break historical applications and require significant
           modification to historical implementations, almost no
           modifications were made. The one significant modification
           that was made was the replacement of the historical bc
           assignment operators "=+", and so on, with the more modern
           "+=", and so on. The older versions are considered to be
           fundamentally flawed because of the lexical ambiguity in uses
           like a=-1.

           In order to permit implementations to deal with backwards-
           compatibility as they see fit, the behavior of this one
           ambiguous construct was made undefined. (At least three
           implementations have been known to support this change
           already, so the degree of change involved should not be
           great.)

       The '%' operator is the mathematical remainder operator when
       scale is zero. The behavior of this operator for other values of
       scale is from historical implementations of bc, and has been
       maintained for the sake of historical applications despite its
       non-intuitive nature.

       Historical implementations permit setting ibase and obase to a
       broader range of values. This includes values less than 2, which
       were not seen as sufficiently useful to standardize. These
       implementations do not interpret input properly for values of
       ibase that are greater than 16. This is because numeric constants
       are recognized syntactically, rather than lexically, as described
       in this volume of POSIX.1‐2017. They are built from lexical
       tokens of single hexadecimal digits and <period> characters.
       Since <blank> characters between tokens are not visible at the
       syntactic level, it is not possible to recognize the multi-digit
       ``digits'' used in the higher bases properly. The ability to
       recognize input in these bases was not considered useful enough
       to require modifying these implementations.  Note that the
       recognition of numeric constants at the syntactic level is not a
       problem with conformance to this volume of POSIX.1‐2017, as it
       does not impact the behavior of conforming applications (and
       correct bc programs). Historical implementations also accept
       input with all of the digits '0'-'9' and 'A'-'F' regardless of
       the value of ibase; since digits with value greater than or equal
       to ibase are not really appropriate, the behavior when they
       appear is undefined, except for the common case of:

           ibase=8;
               /* Process in octal base. */
           ...
           ibase=A
               /* Restore decimal base. */

       In some historical implementations, if the expression to be
       written is an uninitialized array element, a leading <space>
       and/or up to four leading 0 characters may be output before the
       character zero. This behavior is considered a bug; it is unlikely
       that any currently conforming application relies on:

           echo 'b[3]' | bc

       returning 00000 rather than 0.

       Exact calculation of the number of fractional digits to output
       for a given value in a base other than 10 can be computationally
       expensive.  Historical implementations use a faster
       approximation, and this is permitted. Note that the requirements
       apply only to values of obase that this volume of POSIX.1‐2017
       requires implementations to support (in particular, not to 1, 0,
       or negative bases, if an implementation supports them as an
       extension).

       Historical implementations of bc did not allow array parameters
       to be passed as the last parameter to a function. New
       implementations are encouraged to remove this restriction even
       though it is not required by the grammar.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       Section 1.3, Grammar Conventions, awk(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The
       Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
       Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
       obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                            BC(1P)

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