Upvoted for calc. I use it for all the small calculation, as it most often behaves slightly better than bc $ echo "1/2" | bc 0 $ echo "1/2" | bc -l .5

Upvoted for calc. I use it for all the small calculation, as it most often behaves slightly better than bc $ echo "1/2" | bc 0 $ echo "1/2" | bc -l .50000000000000000000 $ echo "scale=1; 1/2" | bc .5 $ echo "1/2" | calc -p 0.5 $ echo "+1+1+1+1" | bc -l (standard_in) 1: syntax error $ echo "+1+1+1+1" | calc -p 4 $ echo "sqrt(-1)" | bc -l Runtime error (func=(main), adr=4): Square root of a negative number $ echo "sqrt(-1)" | calc -p 1i $ echo "s(pi)" | bc -l 0 $ echo "sin(pi())" | calc -p 0