On: GNU bc ends 11-year beta test, releases 1.7

[paxcoder]

Does anyone know why the default scale is 0 (meaning division rounds down by default)?

[rsync → paxcoder]

No idea but initial system setup on every system I touch is to alias bc to 'bc -l'.

I use bc tens of times per day ...

[xorcist → rsync]

I use bc all the time, yet I still managed to miss that option. Thanks!

[bandrami → paxcoder]

Historical compatibility. Back in the day you couldn't always guarantee you even had a coprocessor, so scale > 0 could get arbitrarily expensive.