$ echo 2*1024|bc
20480
$ echo 2.0*1024|bc
2048.0
$ echo 2*1024.0|bc
2048.0
What's going on here then?
Update:
dc manages fine
$ echo "2 1024 * p"|dc
2048
If you put the bc
sum (2*1024
) in single quotes (') does it make a difference? It could well be that the shell is interpreting the *
as a wildcard and expanding it in some way.
$ echo '2*1024' | bc
should give you better results.