How do I stop bc from splitting lines?

Question

I'm using bc from a bash script to do some quick and dirty BigInteger math but, when I bump up the scale, it starts splitting lines on me:

pax> echo 'scale=200 ; 1 / 4' | bc
.2500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

pax> num="$(echo 'scale=200 ; 1 / 4' | bc )" ; echo $num
.2500000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\ 00000 ...

How do I stop this from happening so that I can just get the number without any splits? The man page documents this behaviour but doesn't seem to give any options for changing it.

---

Actually, I'll step back and tell you the source of the request in case anyone has a better solution. I need an array of strings in C equivalent to the values 2^-n, along the lines of:

static char *str[] = {
    "1.00000000 ... 000",     // 1/1 to 150 fractional places.
    "0.50000000 ... 000",     // 1/2
    "0.25000000 ... 000",     // 1/4
    "0.12500000 ... 000",     // 1/8
    : : :
    "0.00000000 ... 004",     // 1/(2^256)
};

I don't care what language generates the array, I'm just going to take the output and plug it into my C code. I do need the accuracy however.

Answer 1

At least on my system, the BC_LINE_LENGTH environment variable controls how long the output lines are:

$ echo 'scale=200; 1/4' | BC_LINE_LENGTH=9999 bc
.25000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Answer 2

localhost:~ slott$ python -c 'print "{0:.200f}".format( 1./4. )'
0.25000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


localhost:~ slott$ python -c 'import decimal; print 1/decimal.Decimal( 2**256 )'
8.636168555094444625386351863E-78

---

import decimal
for i in range(256):
    print "{0:.150f}".format(1/decimal.Decimal(2**i))

That's the raw values.

If you want to create proper C syntax, use something like this.

def long_string_iter():
    for i in range(256):
        yield i, "{0:.150f}".format(1/decimal.Decimal(2**i))

def c_syntax( string_iter ):
   print "static char *str[] = {"
   for i, value in string_iter():
       print '    "{0}", // 1/{1}'.format( value, i )
   print "};"

That might do what you want.

Answer 3

% echo 'scale=200; 1/4' | bc | tr -d '\n' | tr -d '\\'
.25000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000