Floating-Point Arithmetic in a Csh Script

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Apparently, my article did not get sent from my host,
so I'm resubmitting it.

I am trying to do floating-point arithmetic in a csh script for 4.3 BSD.
Since "@ x = 2.3 + 4.5" won't work, I'm using bc.
But I can't find a nice way to get bc's output into a shell variable
without using a temporary file.

This method does not work:
     #!/bin/csh
     set x = `bc << END`
     scale = 5
     $1 + $2
     END

This is the best that I've come up with:
     #!/bin/csh
     # This csh script computes x = $1 + $2,
     # where $1 and $2 are floating-point numbers.
     bc << END > temp
     scale = 5
     $1 + $2
     END
     set x = `cat temp`

Can anybody think of a better way?

			Jeff Rodriguez
			jjr at emx.utexas.edu