fish-shell/doc_src/math.txt
Kurtis Rader 41a7b9457c Implement bare minimum builtin math command
This is the second baby step in resolving #3157. Implement a bare minimum
builtin `math` command. This is solely to ensure that fish can be built
and run in the Travis build environments. This is okay since anyone running
`builtin math` today is already getting an error response.

Also, more work is needed to support bare var references, multiple result
values, etc.
2017-08-23 14:43:45 -07:00

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\section math math - Perform mathematics calculations
\subsection math-synopsis Synopsis
\fish{synopsis}
math [-sN | --scale=N] [--] EXPRESSION
\endfish
\subsection math-description Description
`math` is used to perform mathematical calculations. It is based on the MuParser library which is documented <a href="http://beltoforion.de/article.php?a=muparser&hl=en&p=features&s=idPageTop#idPageTop">here</a>. You can use bare variable names (i.e., without the dollar-sign). The stock MuParser does not support the modulo, `%` operator but fish implements it using integer semantics.
Keep in mind that parameter expansion takes place on any expressions before they are evaluated. This can be very useful in order to perform calculations involving shell variables or the output of command substitutions, but it also means that parenthesis and the asterisk glob character have to be escaped.
The following options are available:
- `-sN` or `--scale=N` sets the scale of the result. `N` must be an integer and defaults to zero (rounded to the nearest integer).
\subsection return-values Return Values
If the expression is successfully evaluated the return `status` is zero (success) else one.
\subsection math-example Examples
`math 1+1` outputs 2.
`math status - 128` outputs the numerical exit status of the last command minus 128.
`math 10 / 6` outputs `1`.
`math -s0 10.0 / 6.0` outputs `1`.
`math -s3 10 / 6` outputs `1.666`.
\subsection math-cautions Cautions
You don't need to use `--` before the expression even if it begins with a minus sign which might otherwise be interpreted as an invalid option.
Note that the modulo operator (`x % y`) is not well defined for floating point arithmetic. Fish rounds down all floating point values to nearest int before performing the modulo operation. So `10.5 % 6.1` is `4`.
\subsection math-notes Compatibility notes
Fish 1.x and 2.x releases relied on the `bc` command for handling math expressions via the `math` command. Starting with fish 3.0.0 fish uses the MuParser library.