Compare Floating Point Variables

[Grizzlyman]

Hi Im wondering how to compare floating point variables. I tried:

var1=1.1111
var2=1.0001
if [ $var1 -gt $var2 ]
then X=1
else X=0
fi

But bash thinks that the numbers are equal. Any ideas?

[birdman]

I think you'll need to use bc.

Floating Point Math in Bash | Linux Journal

[drl]

Hi.

I think you'll need to use bc.

Floating Point Math in Bash | Linux Journal

Note that at the end of the comments after the article shells ksh and zsh are mentioned. They have such arithmetic builtin. If you are concerned about portability to bash and other Bourne shell family members or size (of your system), then bc is probably best. Notice also that other scripting languages are mentioned: if you have the time, space, knowledge, and a lot of arithmetic to do, e.g. awk, perl, etc.

Best wishes ... cheers, drl