I took two variables as input and after dividing them, I want to get the output rounded up to 5 decimal digits. I have tried this way ->
sum=12
n=7
output=$("scale=5;sum/n"|bc)
echo $output
My code isn't showing any output. What can I do??
TestCase:
If sum=3345699 and n=1000000 then (sum/n)=3.345699, it should be changed into 3.34570.
The problem here is that you missed the echo (or printf or any other thing) to provide the data to bc:
$ echo "scale=5; 12/7" | bc
1.71428
Also, as noted by cnicutar in comments, you need to use $ to refer to the variables. sum is a string, $sum is the value of the variable sum.
All together, your snippet should be like:
sum=12
n=7
output=$(echo "scale=5;$sum/$n" | bc)
echo "$output"
This returns 1.71428.
Otherwise, with "scale=5;sum/n"|bc you are just piping an assignment and makes bc fail:
$ "scale=5;sum/n"|bc
bash: scale=5;sum/n: No such file or directory
You then say that you want to have the result rounded, which does not happen right now:
$ sum=3345699
$ n=1000000
$ echo "scale=5;($sum/$n)" | bc
3.34569
This needs a different approach, since bc does not round. You can use printf together with %.Xf to round to X decimal numbers, which does:
$ printf "%.5f" "$(echo "scale=10;$sum/$n" | bc)"
3.34570
See I give it a big scale, so that then printf has decimals numbers enough to round properly.