BCAL(1) User Commands BCAL(1) NAME bcal - Storage expression calculator. SYNOPSIS bcal [-c N] [-f loc] [-s bytes] [expr] [N [unit]] [-b [expr]] [-m] [-d] [-h] DESCRIPTION bcal (Byte CALculator) is a command-line utility to help with numerical calculations and expressions involving binary prefixes, SI/IEC conversion, byte addressing, base conversion, LBA/CHS calculation etc. It invokes GNU bc for non-storage expressions. Alternatively, it can also invoke calc (http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/comp/calc/). To use calc: export BCAL_USE_CALC=1 bcal uses [SI and IEC binary prefixes]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi- nary_prefix FEATURES * evaluate arithmetic expressions involving storage units * perform general purpose calculations (using bc or calc) * works with piped input or file redirection * convert to IEC/SI standard data storage units * interactive mode with the last valid result stored for reuse * show the address in bytes * show address as LBA:OFFSET * convert CHS to LBA and vice versa * base conversion to binary, decimal and hex * custom sector size, max heads/cylinder and max sectors/track * minimal dependencies OPERATIONAL NOTES 1. Interactive mode: bcal enters the REPL mode if no arguments are pro- vided. Storage unit conversion, base conversion and expression evalua- tion are supported in this mode. The last valid result is stored in the variable r. 2. Expression: Expression passed as argument in one-shot mode must be within double quotes. Inner spaces are ignored. Supported operators: +, -, *, /, % and C bitwise operators (except ~ due to storage width de- pendency). 3. N [unit]: N can be a decimal or '0x' prefixed hex value. unit can be B/KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB/kB/MB/GB/TB. Default is Byte. As all of these tokens are unique, unit is case-insensitive. 4. Numeric representation: Decimal and hex are recognized in expressions and unit conversions. Binary is also recognized in other operations. 5. Syntax: Prefix hex inputs with '0x', binary inputs with '0b'. 6. Precision: 128 bits if __uint128_t is available or 64 bits for numeri- cal conversions. Floating point operations use long double. Negative values in storage expressions are unsupported. Only 64-bit operating systems are supported. 7. Fractional bytes do not exist, because they can't be addressed. bcal shows the floor value of non-integer bytes. 8. CHS and LBA syntax: - LBA: 'lLBA-MAX_HEAD-MAX_SECTOR' [NOTE: LBA starts with 'l' (case ignored)] - CHS: 'cC-H-S-MAX_HEAD-MAX_SECTOR' [NOTE: CHS starts with 'c' (case ignored)] - Format conversion arguments must be hyphen separated. - Any unspecified value, including the one preceding the first '-' to the one following the last '-', is considered '0' (zero). - Examples: - 'c-50--0x12-' -> C = 0, H = 50, S = 0, MH = 0x12, MS = 0 - 'l50-0x12' -> LBA = 50, MH = 0x12, MS = 0 9. Default values: - sector size: 0x200 (512) - max heads per cylinder: 0x10 (16) - max sectors per track: 0x3f (63) 10. bc variables: scale = 10, ibase = 10. r is synced and can be used in expressions. bc is not called in minimal output mode. To use calc in- stead of bc, export BCAL_USE_CALC=1. OPTIONS -c=N Show decimal, binary and hex representation of positive integer N. -f=loc Convert CHS to LBA or LBA to CHS. loc is hyphen-separated represen- tation of LBA or CHS. Please refer to the Operational Notes section for more details. -s=bytes Sector size in bytes. Default value is 512. -b=[expr] Start in bc mode. If expression is provided, evaluate in bc and quit. -m Show minimal output (e.g. decimal bytes). -d Enable debug information and logs. -h Show program help, storage sizes on the system and exit. PROMPT KEYS b Toggle bc mode. r Show result from last operation. s Show sizes of storage types. ? Show prompt help. q, double Enter Quit the program. EXAMPLES 1. Evaluate arithmetic expression of storage units $ bcal "(5kb+2mb)/3" $ bcal "5 tb / 12" $ bcal "2.5mb*3" $ bcal "(2giB * 2) / (2kib >> 2)" 2. Convert storage capacity to other units and get address, LBA. $ bcal 20140115 b $ bcal 0x1335053 B $ bcal 0xaabbcc kb $ bcal 0xdef Gib Note that the units are case-insensitive. 3. Convert storage capacity, set sector size to 4096 to calculate LBA. $ bcal 0xaabbcc kb -s 4096 4. Convert LBA to CHS. $ bcal -f l500 $ bcal -f l0x600-18-0x7e $ bcal -f l0x300-0x12-0x7e 5. Convert CHS to LBA. $ bcal -f c10-10-10 $ bcal -f c0x10-0x10-0x10 $ bcal -f c0x10-10-2-0x12 $ bcal -f c-10-2-0x12 $ bcal -f c0x10-10--0x12 6. Show binary, decimal and hex representations of a number. $ bcal -c 20140115 $ bcal -c 0b1001100110101000001010011 $ bcal -c 0x1335053 bcal> c 20140115 // Interactive mode 7. Invoke bc. $ bcal -b '3.5 * 2.1 + 5.7' bcal> b // Interactive mode bc vars: scale = 10, ibase = 10, last = r bc> 3.5 * 2.1 + 5.7 8. Pipe input. $ printf '15 kib + 15 gib \n r / 5' | bcal -m $ printf '15 + 15 + 2' | bcal -bm 9. Redirect from file. $ cat expr 15 gib + 15 kib r / 5 $ bcal -m < expr 10. Use as a general-purpose calculator. $ bcal -b AUTHORS Arun Prakash Jana <engineerarun@gmail.com> HOME https://github.com/jarun/bcal REPORTING BUGS https://github.com/jarun/bcal/issues LICENSE Copyright (C) 2016 Arun Prakash Jana <engineerarun@gmail.com> License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/li- censes/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Version 2.4 24 Jan 2022 BCAL(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FEATURES | OPERATIONAL NOTES | OPTIONS | PROMPT KEYS | EXAMPLES | AUTHORS | HOME | REPORTING BUGS | LICENSE
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