The most basic element in bc is the number. Numbers are
arbitrary precision numbers. This precision is both in the integer part
and the fractional part. All numbers are represented internally in
decimal and all computation is done in decimal. (This version truncates
results from divide and multiply operations.) There are two attributes
of numbers, the length and the scale. The length is the total number of
significant decimal digits in a number and the scale is the total number
of decimal digits after the decimal point. For example, .000001 has a
length of 6 and scale of 6, while 1935.000 has a length of 7 and a scale
of 3.
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