6.15. Bc-1.07.1

The Bc package contains an arbitrary precision numeric processing language.

Approximate build time: 0.1 SBU
Required disk space: 3.7 MB

6.15.1. Installation of Bc

First, change an internal script to use sed instead of ed:

cat > bc/fix-libmath_h << "EOF"
#! /bin/bash
sed -e '1   s/^/{"/' \
    -e     's/$/",/' \
    -e '2,$ s/^/"/'  \
    -e   '$ d'       \
    -i libmath.h

sed -e '$ s/$/0}/' \
    -i libmath.h
EOF

Create temporary symbolic links so the package can find the readline library and confirm that its required libncurses library is available. Even though the libraries are in /tools/lib at this point, the system will use /usr/lib at the end of this chapter.

ln -sv /tools/lib/libncursesw.so.6 /usr/lib/libncursesw.so.6
ln -sfv libncurses.so.6 /usr/lib/libncurses.so

Fix an issue in configure due to missing files in the early stages of LFS:

sed -i -e '/flex/s/as_fn_error/: ;; # &/' configure

Prepare Bc for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr           \
            --with-readline         \
            --mandir=/usr/share/man \
            --infodir=/usr/share/info

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-readline

This option tells Bc to use the readline library that is already installed on the system rather than using its own readline version.

Compile the package:

make

To test bc, run the commands below. There is quite a bit of output, so you may want to redirect it to a file. There are a very small percentage of tests (10 of 12,144) that will indicate a round off error at the last digit.

echo "quit" | ./bc/bc -l Test/checklib.b

Install the package:

make install

6.15.2. Contents of Bc

Installed programs: bc and dc

Short Descriptions

bc

A command line calculator

dc

A reverse-polish command line calculator