For one-off simple calculations I just use awk, with this handy function in my .bashrc: function calc() { awk "BEGIN{print $*}"; } # usage in bash $ c

For one-off simple calculations I just use awk, with this handy function in my .bashrc: function calc() { awk "BEGIN{print $*}"; } # usage in bash $ calc 'sqrt(25) + 2**3 - 17.17' -4.17