I would like to use
m4
interactively as a preprocessor for bc
. My immediate use case is to add an include
capability to bc
, but I can foresee other uses in the future. But there is a problem. Here is an example using bc
on its own:
`
$ bc
bc 1.07.1
Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
For details type `warranty'.
3+7
10
sqrt(12345)
111
quit
$
`
And here is the same example using m4
interactively:
`
$ m4 -iP - | bc
3+7
10
sqrt(12345)
111
quit
$
`
There are two differences. First, the m4
version suppresses the banner. Second, the m4
version doesn't execute quit
immediately, but instead requires the enter key to be pressed an additional time before it executes the quit
.
Why do these things occur? How can I make the m4
version work the same way as the bc
version?
Asked by user448810
(131 rep)
Apr 9, 2024, 08:03 PM
Last activity: Apr 12, 2024, 10:16 PM
Last activity: Apr 12, 2024, 10:16 PM