Is it possible to produce a fraction with bc?

I know bc is an arbitrary calculator, but I don't know what that means other than it produces decimals. I can hand jam a decimal until is a fraction, but is there a way to make bc convert the decimal to a fraction, or should I look else where?

Try this:

$ echo 'scale=20; print 355/113, "\n"' | bc

That works, however, it's still in the form of a decimal. Maybe I'm expecting something that bc can't do?

$ echo 'scale=20; print 355/113, "\n"' | bc
3.14159292035398230088

is there anyway to get it to format it so that it displays as

22/7

Am I asking this the right way?

I don't think that is possible. Try wolframalfa.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3%2F7%2B7%2F3

I don't think there is a function to easily convert a decimal to a fraction in bc. Here is an algorithm written in awk:

BEGIN {
    eps = 1.0E-10
}

{
  x = sprintf("%d",$0) + 0
  N1 = 1
  D1 = 0
  N = x
  D = 1

  while ( $0-x > eps*D*D ) {
    $0 = 1/($0-x)
    x = sprintf("%d",$0) + 0
    N2 = N1
    N1 = N
    D2 = D1
    D1 = D
    N = N2 + x*N1
    D = D2 + x*D1
  }

  print N "/" D

}

where the decimal to convert is $0. I'm not an expert of bc programming language, but since it has while loops, it should be easy to convert this code in bc or eventually you can use it directly with awk! Hope this helps.

Hi.

There is another arbitrary precision calculator called calc (in Debian-like distros the package is called apcalc). Rational numbers is a built in type in calc (all real numbers are represented by numerator and denominator internally).

Here is a sample session:

$ calc
; x=1.5
; x
        1.5
; num(x)
        3
; den(x)
        2
; exp(x)
        4.4816890703380648226
; num(exp(x))
        22408445351690324113
; den(exp(x))
        5000000000000000000
; 22408445351690324113/5000000000000000000
        4.4816890703380648226

Originally Posted by Predatorian $ echo 'scale=20; print 355/113, "\n"' | bc 3.14159292035398230088 is there anyway to get it to format it so that it displays as 22/7

I hope not!

If you want 7 in the denominator for a result of 3.14159292035398230088, then 21.99115044247787610616 and not 22 gazinta the numerator.

Why 22/7? Why not 44/14?

OK

emacs calc mode can do fractions (M-x calc).

Per the manual: "The c F (calc-fraction) [pfrac] command converts a floating-point number into a fractional approximation. By default, it produces a fraction whose decimal representation is the same as the input number, to within the current precision. You can also give a numeric prefix argument to specify a tolerance, either directly, or, if the prefix argument is zero, by using the number on top of the stack as the tolerance. If the tolerance is a positive integer, the fraction is correct to within that many significant figures. If the tolerance is a non-positive integer, it specifies how many digits fewer than the current precision to use. If the tolerance is a floating-point number, the fraction is correct to within that absolute amount."