105

bc handles numbers as integers:

# echo "100/3" | bc
33

bc -l handles numbers as floating point objects:

# echo "100/3" | bc -l
33.33333333333333333333

Is there a way to limit the number of digits after the decimal point?

2
  • 13
    Interestingly, this only works with division. If you want to do scale=0;1234*1.1, you have to write it as scale=0;1234*1.1/1 to get 1357. Otherwise, no matter the value of scale, you get 1357.4.
    – Wok
    May 12, 2014 at 13:37
  • 3
    @Wok, it's not dependent on division or multiplication. It depends on the input - the biggest precision number determines the precision in the output. Notice how 1234*1.0 will give you 1234.0
    – Richlv
    Aug 17, 2016 at 18:53

5 Answers 5

129

Set the scale special variable:

$ echo "scale=2; 100/3" | bc
33.33
7
  • 4
    See @Wok's comment on the question.
    – Adam Matan
    Apr 28, 2016 at 11:59
  • 1
    $ echo "scale=2; (100/180)*180" | bc gives 99.00 :( Sep 9, 2016 at 10:39
  • 1
    @DonatasOlsevičius this is because (100/180) = 0.55 and then (0.55 * 180) = 99. So it is giving you right value :) Feb 7, 2017 at 13:22
  • It would be nice if it rounded up if above .5. ~$ echo "scale=2; 12/104" | bc .11 If rounded up this would be .12. However, it should still do the job for my task.
    – jbrock
    Aug 29, 2017 at 16:01
  • 10
    You can maintain precision until printing the value this way: echo "result = (100/180) * 180; scale=2; result / 1" | bc -l. Now you get 99.99. Aug 13, 2018 at 1:44
21

scale works only for division; if some geeks need it in multiplication, then you can do achieve this by using string manipulation. Say if you need to multiply 32 * 0.60 , answer is 19.20. If you need to get it 19 alone in answer you can get it by different methods.

  1. Using String Manipulation

    $ S=$(echo "32*.60" | bc ) ; echo ${S%.*}
    19
    

    String Manipulation syntax: ${Variable%pattern}, this will delete short matching pattern that comes after %. For more String manipulation details see the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide.

  2. Using Scale as stated by **chronitis**

    $ echo "scale=0; 32*60/100" | bc
    19
    
  3. To get rid of the trailing 0s, instead of string manipulation, one can also do a divide by 1.

    $ echo "0.232 * 1000" | bc
    232.000
    
    $ echo "0.232 * 1000 / 1" | bc
    232
    
2
  • 1
    Note that, as i mentioned in my comment on the question, it is not caused by multiplication, but rather by the input numbers having a decimal part. Or, to put it differently, the number with the "longest" decimal part will determine how many decimal places the output will have.
    – Richlv
    Aug 17, 2016 at 18:55
  • 2
    Thanks in particular for the hint that division by 1 gets rid of the decimal portion!
    – porg
    May 6, 2022 at 18:41
9

you can also use printf command to round off result upto 3 decimals

# printf "%.3f\n" $(echo "100/3" | bc -l)
3.333
6

In addition to previous answers

echo "scale=2; 1.0150876" | bc

Returns

1.0150876

Add Math operations to get only 2 decimal numbers - (NUMBER*100)/100

echo "scale=2; (1.0150876 * 100) / 100" | bc

Now returns

1.01
1
  • Yes, but echo "scale=2; (1.0150876 / 100) * 100" | bc returns 1.00
    – fraff
    Apr 22, 2021 at 12:38
3

Round-off

scale=2 truncates the answer to two decimal digits, but we can achieve round-off like so:

$ echo "a=12/104; scale=2; (a+0.005)/1" | bc -l
.12

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