Simple Multiplication in terminal

Question

Simple Multiplication in terminal

How do you do simple multiplication in the terminal

say something like 50 * 2 and have it return the answer

Message was edited by: Eric Lundquist

iMac Alu 2.0GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Aug 11, 2009 9:14 AM

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Answer 1

Niel

Level 10

741,809 points

Aug 11, 2009 9:21 AM in response to Eric Lundquist

Use the bc command; click here for more information.

(46321)

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Answer 2

Aug 11, 2009 9:27 AM in response to Niel

is there anyway to have it just return the result instead of typing bc then using it like a standard calculator , like if i were to plug it into a script and needed it to return the result of the last
"$line * $line"

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Answer 3

Aug 11, 2009 9:29 AM in response to Eric Lundquist

nvm figured it out thanks for the help

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Answer 4

Niel

Level 10

741,809 points

Aug 11, 2009 9:29 AM in response to Eric Lundquist

Use the following:

osascript -e '50 * 2'

This command is specific to Mac OS X.

(46324)

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Answer 5

Aug 11, 2009 10:52 AM in response to Eric Lundquist

You could try expr:
<pre style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding-left: .75ex; padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: 1ex; max-width: 20ex; overflow: auto; font-size: 10px; font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; color: #444; background: #eee; line-height: normal">expr 50 \* 2</pre>

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Answer 6

BobHarris

Level 9

56,921 points

Aug 11, 2009 11:27 AM in response to Eric Lundquist

Assuming the shell is bash then


val1=$((50 * 2))
val2=$((value + 31))
# or
let val3=50*2
let val4=val3+31

The nice thing about the $((...)) notation is that you can use that in the middle of a command line.


sec=$(date +%s)
someCommand -x $((sec - (24 * 60 * 60)))

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