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Old 26th July 2019
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Default sh script to convert inches to mm and cm

I found a few interesting DIY wood working projects on the interwebs and because the measurements were in inches I wrote a simple sh script to convert these to millimeters and centimeters.

Code:
#!/bin/sh

# use 'bc(1)', the multiprecision calculator to convert inches to mm and cm

INCH='25.4'     # millimeter (mm)
PRECISION=4     # nr of fractional digits

VALUE=1

cat <<END
You can enter values like '1 1/4' or '2 3/8' inch as '1+1/4' and '2+3/8'
-----------------------
Nr of inches: 1/8
1/8 inch = 3.1750 mm or .3175 cm

Nr of inches: 1+1/4
1+1/4 inch = 31.7500 mm or 3.1750 cm
-----------------------

Press CNTRL-C to exit.

END

while true ; do    
        printf "\nNr of inches: " 
        read VALUE
        MM=$( echo "scale = ${PRECISION} ; ( ${VALUE} ) * ${INCH}" | bc )
        CM=$( echo "scale = ${PRECISION} ; ${MM} / 10" | bc )
        echo "${VALUE} inch = ${MM} mm or ${CM} cm"
done
Example where I convert the size of a 2 by 4" and the 1/16" holes to drill in a 3/4" PVC irrigation pipe:

Code:
$ ./inch2milli.sh
You can enter values like '1 1/4' or '2 3/8' inch as '1+1/4' and '2+3/8'
-----------------------
Nr of inches: 1/8
1/8 inch = 3.1750 mm or .3175 cm

Nr of inches: 1+1/4
1+1/4 inch = 31.7500 mm or 3.1750 cm
-----------------------

Press CNTRL-C to exit.


Nr of inches: 2
2 inch = 50.8 mm or 5.0800 cm

Nr of inches: 4
4 inch = 101.6 mm or 10.1600 cm

Nr of inches: 1/16
1/16 inch = 1.5875 mm or .1587 cm

Nr of inches: 3/4
3/4 inch = 19.0500 mm or 1.9050 cm

Nr of inches: ^C$
Attached Files
File Type: sh inch2milli.sh (683 Bytes, 56 views)
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Old 26th July 2019
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IdOp IdOp is offline
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Thank you for posting that, I enjoy playing with shell scripts for odd purposes.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of bc(1) is about zero, so naturally the first thing that came to my mind after looking at your script was "Hmmm, could you do that just with shell arithmetic and without bc ?" At first I thought it would be problematic, but after thinking about it a bit it seemed it would not be that difficult. So I had some fun writing a script to do it (shown below).

Here is my "analysis" which also explains how the script works. The script takes 3 arguments,

$1 = A = whole number of inches

$2 = B = numerator of fractional part

$3 = C = denominator of fractional part

So, "A B C" means A+B/C inches, which will be converted to cm with 4 digits precision, as an example. A and B must be non-negative integers, and C a positive integer. Then

( A + B/C ) inch = N * 10^{-4} cm

where N is a non-negative integer that we seek to find. A little algebra gives

[ ( AC + B) / C ] * 10^4 inch = N cm

Using inch = 2.54 cm this gives an answer for N:

N = [ ( AC + B ) / C ] * 10^2 * 254 = [ ( AC + B ) * 25400 ] / C

But, shell arithmetic is going to truncate this division, so to round it I think we should add C/2 to the top. I.e., if X is the [...] then replace it wtih X+C/2 = (2X+C)/2. Then the rounded value for N is

N = [ ( AC + B ) * 25400 * 2 + C ] / (2C)

Finally we want the integer and fractional parts of N * 10^{-4}. These are:

I = floor( N / 10^4 )

and (remainder times 10^4):

R = ( N - I * 10*4 )

The answer is basically "I.R" printed properly with printf().

Code:
#!/bin/sh

# Inches to CentiMeters (to 4 decimal precision)
# Arguments:  $1 = whole inches;  $2 = fractional numerator;  $3 = fractional denominator
#             i.e.,  $1 + $2 / $3 [inches]
#             Both $2 and $3 can be omitted together (for a whole inch)

# Argument checking is a bit rudimentary ...

if [ $# -eq 0  -o  $# -eq 2  -o  $# -ge 4 ]; then
    echo Error a.
    exit
fi

A=$1
B=${2:-0}
C=${3:-1}

if [ $C -le 0 ]; then
    echo Error b.
    exit
fi

N=$(( ( A * C + B ) * 25400 * 2 + C ))

N=$(( N / ( 2 * C ) ))

I=$(( N / 10000 ))

R=$((  N - I * 10000 ))

printf ">>  %d + %d / %d in  =  %d.%04d cm\n" $A $B $C $I $R
(To convert a whole number of inches, the script allows a single argument.)

Comments and corrections are welcome, as I haven't checked this extensively, but it seems to work in several cases I tried.

EDIT: There's a bug in the attached file. The printf statement should contain %04d as shown in the code block. Ooops. Hmmm, it seems the file didn't attach, just as well I guess! You can copy from the code block.

Last edited by IdOp; 26th July 2019 at 07:56 PM.
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Old 2nd August 2019
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Interesting, but rather complicated ;-).

bc(1) uses a simple C-like language for arithmetic expressions. After parsing/pre-processing then feeds it to dc(1), a reverse-Polish notation unlimited precision utility.

I find it rather easy to use.
Another way is to use it from the command line like:

Code:
$ bc -e 'scale=4 ; (1/8) * 25.4' -e 'quit'
3.1750

$ echo 'scale=4 ; (1+1/4) * 25.4' | bc
31.7500
My script uses the last method.
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Old 3rd August 2019
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IdOp IdOp is offline
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bc and dc are certainly practical and powerful tools. They can do things that would go far beyond what is realistically feasible with shell arithmetic. Or for simpler tasks, like inches --> cm, they can be used to get results quickly (assuming one knows how to use them). For a project like yours, that's important, after all I'm sure what matters most is cutting or drilling the wood at the right size, and not getting lost in arcane arithmetic.

I vaguely recalled there were such calculation tools in Unix systems --- I think they've even been mentioned on daemonforums before --- but couldn't have remembered their names if asked. So this thread is a helpful reminder about them for one day when I might need to use them.

The shell approach just seemed like a natural question in the nature of minimalism, and for me at least is the kind of puzzle that's a lot of fun and hard to stop playing with once the question is posed.
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Old 3rd August 2019
ibara ibara is offline
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Interestingly, these two scripts are not identical. They produce different outputs.
Try using the number 5/9 as your inches input.

IdOp's script will produce:
Code:
>>  0 + 5 / 9 in  =  1.4111 cm
whereas J65nko's script will produce:
Code:
5/9 inch = 14.1097 mm or 1.4109 cm
Wolfram|Alpha reports the answer is 1.4111:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?...9+inches+in+cm

How do we reconcile this? This is because in J65nko's script, bc(1)'s scale factor is set to 4, which causes a premature truncation of the division. If you want bc(1) to output without the premature truncation, you should increase the scale factor beyond what you want for output (let's say 2x for safety), then use printf(1) to cap your output.

Something like this will indeed print the correct 1.4111:
Code:
$ echo 'scale=8 ; (5/9) * 2.54' | bc | xargs printf "%.4f\n"
Indeed, changing these three lines in J65nko's script from:
Code:
PRECISION=4     # nr of fractional digits
MM=$( echo "scale = ${PRECISION} ; ( ${VALUE} ) * ${INCH}" | bc )
CM=$( echo "scale = ${PRECISION} ; ${MM} / 10" | bc )
to:
Code:
PRECISION=8     # nr of fractional digits * 2
MM=$( echo "scale = ${PRECISION} ; ( ${VALUE} ) * ${INCH}" | bc | xargs printf "%.4f\n" )
CM=$( echo "scale = ${PRECISION} ; ${MM} / 10" | bc | xargs printf "%.4f\n" )
creates identical outputs.
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Old 3rd August 2019
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IdOp IdOp is offline
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That's interesting. It's conceivable that for any given safety factor, such as using 8 digits, there might be some narrow special case fraction inputs such that the rounded results are still different. (Just speculation on my part.) As for checking of my script's results, I just used a hand canculator, e.g.,

(5/9)* 2.54 = 1.41111111...

and observed it seemed to round to 4 digits properly in the few cases I checked.
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Old 8th August 2019
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Ibara, thanks for your remarks.

The rounding error is because the script evolved from using only whole non-fractional input to fractional input for drilling holes , like 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/16.

In the metric system we have drill bit sizes ranging from 1, 1,5, 2, 3.5, 4, 4.5 mm and so on. When somebody recommends to use a 1/16" drill bit for a simple DIY drip irrigation system, I needed to see which of my metric drill bits is the best equivalent. Hence the 4 digit precision.
Code:
$ echo 'scale = 4; 25.4 / 16' | bc
1.5875
So here I would use a 1.5 mm drill bit and not a 2 mm which the normal rounding would tell me. At the end of the irrigation pipe you already have less pressure than at the beginning. So 1.5 mm would be the best choice.

Then I needed to convert PVC pipe diameters like 1-1/4". For my script to handle that I had to wrap the '1 + 1/4" inside parentheses to get the correct answer:
Code:
$  echo 'scale=4 ; 25.4 / 4 ' | bc
6.3500
 
$ echo 'scale=4 ; 6.35 + 25.4 ' | bc
31.75
 
# wrong!
$ echo 'scale=4; 1 + 1 / 4 * 25.4' | bc
7.3500 

# correct
$ echo 'scale=4; (1 + 1 / 4) * 25.4' | bc
31.7500
This is close to the 32 mm PVC irrigation pipe that I can get here.

To prevent the 5/9 rounding issue, a multiplication of 5 * 25.4 and then a division by 9 would be another method:
Code:
$ echo 'scale = 4 ; 5 * 25.4 / 9' | bc
14.1111
This, however, requires parsing of the input.
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