BC - output normal form?

Question

I have a big number:

2923174917395723957

that would be:

2,923*10^18

are there any parameters in bc that will give this OUTPUT?
e.g.:

$ echo '2923174917395723956 + 1' | bc
2,923*10^18
$ 

Or something similar...the point is that it must have a short look
Thank you!

Answer 1

Try the printf command:

$ printf "%e\n" 2923174917395723957
2.923175e+18

In your locale, it should use , instead of ., of course. You can also control the format more precisely such as:

$ printf "%.3e\n" 2923174917395723957
2.923e+18

Some shells like bash have a built-in called printf which may be different from any printf command that comes with the system, but, in general, you shouldn't notice any difference with simple commands like above. You can also use printf from Perl which will be pretty consistent.

$ perl -e 'printf "%.3e\n", 2923174917395723957'
2.923e+18