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bc(1) bc(1) NNAAMMEE bc - An arbitrary precision calculator language SSYYNNTTAAXX bbcc [ --llwwss ] [ _f_i_l_e _._._. ] VVEERRSSIIOONN This man page documents GNU bc version 1.02. DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN bbcc is a language that supports arbitrary precision numbers with interactive execution of statements. There are some similarities in the syntax to the C programming language. A standard math library is available by command line option. If requested, the math library is defined before processing any files. bbcc starts by processing code from all the files listed on the command line in the order listed. After all files have been processed, bbcc reads from the standard input. All code is executed as it is read. (If a file contains a command to halt the proces- sor, bbcc will never read from the standard input.) This version of bbcc contains several extensions beyond tra- ditional bbcc implementations and the POSIX draft standard. Command line options can cause these extensions to print a warning or to be rejected. This document describes the language accepted by this processor. Extensions will be identified as such. OOPPTTIIOONNSS -l Define the standard math library. -w Give warnings for extensions to POSIX bbcc. -s Process exactly the POSIX bbcc language. NNUUMMBBEERRSS The most basic element in bbcc 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. 1935.000 has a length of 7 and a scale of 3. VVAARRIIAABBLLEESS Numbers are stored in two types of variables, simple vari- ables and arrays. Both simple variables and array vari- ables are named. Names begin with a letter followed by . 1 bc(1) bc(1) any number of letters, digits and underscores. All let- ters must be lower case. (Full alpha-numeric names are an extension. In POSIX bbcc all names are a single lower case letter.) The type of variable is clear by the context because all array variable names will be followed by brackets ([]). There are four special variables, ssccaallee,, iibbaassee,, oobbaassee,, and llaasstt. ssccaallee defines how some operations use digits after the decimal point. The default value of ssccaallee is 0. iibbaassee and oobbaassee define the conversion base for input and output numbers. The default for both input and output is base 10. llaasstt (an extension) is a variable that has the value of the last printed number. These will be discussed in further detail where appropriate. All of these variables may have values assigned to them as well as used in expressions. CCOOMMMMEENNTTSS Comments in bbcc start with the characters //** and end with the characters **//. Comments may start anywhere and appear as a single space in the input. (This causes comments to delimit other input items. For example, a comment can not be found in the middle of a variable name.) Comments include any newlines (end of line) between the start and the end of the comment. EEXXPPRREESSSSIIOONNSS The numbers are manipulated by expressions and statements. Since the language was designed to be interactive, state- ments and expressions are executed as soon as possible. There is no "main" program. Instead, code is executed as it is encountered. (Functions, discussed in detail later, are defined when encountered.) A simple expression is just a constant. bbcc converts con- stants into internal decimal numbers using the current input base, specified by the variable iibbaassee. (There is an exception in functions.) The legal values of iibbaassee are 2 through 16 (F). Assigning a value outside this range to iibbaassee will result in a value of 2 or 16. Input numbers may contain the characters 0-9 and A-F. (Note: They must be capitals. Lower case letters are variable names.) Single digit numbers always have the value of the digit regardless of the value of iibbaassee. (i.e. A = 10.) For multi-digit numbers, bbcc changes all input digits greater or equal to ibase to the value of iibbaassee-1. This makes the number FFFFFF always be the largest 3 digit number of the input base. Full expressions are similar to many other high level lan- guages. Since there is only one kind of number, there are no rules for mixing types. Instead, there are rules on the scale of expressions. Every expression has a scale. . 2 bc(1) bc(1) This is derived from the scale of original numbers, the operation performed and in many cases, the value of the variable ssccaallee. Legal values of the variable ssccaallee are 0 to the maximum number representable by a C integer. In the following descriptions of legal expressions, "expr" refers to a complete expression and "var" refers to a sim- ple or an array variable. A simple variable is just a _n_a_m_e and an array variable is specified as _n_a_m_e[_e_x_p_r] Unless specifically mentioned the scale of the result is the maximum scale of the expressions involved. - expr The result is the negation of the expression. ++ var The variable is incremented by one and the new value is the result of the expression. -- var The variable is decremented by one and the new value is the result of the expression. var ++ The result of the expression is the value of the variable and then the variable is incremented by one. var -- The result of the expression is the value of the variable and then the variable is decremented by one. expr + expr The result of the expression is the sum of the two expressions. expr - expr The result of the expression is the difference of the two expressions. expr * expr The result of the expression is the product of the two expressions. expr / expr The result of the expression is the quotient of the two expressions. The scale of the result is the value of the variable ssccaallee. expr % expr The result of the expression is the "remainder" and it is computed in the following way. To compute a%b, first a/b is computed to ssccaallee digits. That result is used to compute a-(a/b)*b to the scale of the maximum of ssccaallee+scale(b) and scale(a). If ssccaallee is set to zero and both expressions are . 3 bc(1) bc(1) integers this expression is the integer remainder function. expr ^ expr The result of the expression is the value of the first raised to the second. The second expression must be an integer. (If the second expression is not an integer, a warning is generated and the expression is truncated to get an integer value.) The scale of the result is ssccaallee if the exponent is negative. If the exponent is positive the scale of the result is the minimum of the scale of the first expression times the value of the exponent and the maximum of ssccaallee and the scale of the first expres- sion. (e.g. scale(a^b) = min(scale(a)*b, max( ssccaallee,, scale(a))).) It should be noted that expr^0 will always return the value of 1. ( expr ) This alters the standard precedence to force the evaluation of the expression. var = expr The variable is assigned the value of the expres- sion. var <op>= expr This is equivalent to "var = var <op> expr" with the exception that the "var" part is evaluated only once. This can make a difference if "var" is an array. Relational expressions are a special kind of expression that always evaluate to 0 or 1, 0 if the relation is false and 1 if the relation is true. These may appear in any legal expression. (POSIX bc requires that relational expressions are used only in if, while, and for statements and that only one relational test may be done in them.) The relational operators are expr1 < expr2 The result is 1 if expr1 is strictly less than expr2. expr1 <= expr2 The result is 1 if expr1 is less than or equal to expr2. expr1 > expr2 The result is 1 if expr1 is strictly greater than expr2. expr1 >= expr2 The result is 1 if expr1 is greater than or equal . 4 bc(1) bc(1) to expr2. expr1 == expr2 The result is 1 if expr1 is equal to expr2. expr1 != expr2 The result is 1 if expr1 is not equal to expr2. Boolean operations are also legal. (POSIX bbcc does NOT have boolean operations). The result of all boolean opera- tions are 0 and 1 (for false and true) as in relational expressions. The boolean operators are: !expr The result is 1 if expr is 0. expr && expr The result is 1 if both expressions are non-zero. expr || expr The result is 1 if either expression is non-zero. The expression precedence is as follows: (lowest to high- est) || operator, left associative && operator, left associative ! operator, nonassociative Relational operators, left associative Assignment operator, right associative + and - operators, left associative *, / and % operators, left associative ^ operator, right associative unary - operator, nonassociative ++ and -- operators, nonassociative This precedence was chosen so that POSIX compliant bbcc pro- grams will run correctly. This will cause the use of the relational and logical operators to have some unusual behavior when used with assignment expressions. Consider the expression: a = 3 < 5 Most C programmers would assume this would assign the result of "3 < 5" (the value 1) to the variable "a". What this does in bbcc is assign the value 3 to the variable "a" and then compare 3 to 5. It is best to use parenthesis when using relational and logical operators with the assignment operators. There are a few more special expressions that are provided in bbcc. These have to do with user defined functions and standard functions. They all appear as "_n_a_m_e((_p_a_r_a_m_e_t_e_r_s))". See the section on functions for user defined functions. The standard functions are: . 5 bc(1) bc(1) length ( expression ) The value of the length function is the number of significant digits in the expression. read ( ) The read function (an extension) will read a number from the standard input, regardless of where the function occurs. Beware, this can cause problems with the mixing of data and program in the standard input. The best use for this function is in a pre- viously written program that needs input from the user, but never allows program code to be input from the user. The value of the read function is the number read from the standard input using the current value of the variable iibbaassee for the conver- sion base. scale ( expression ) The value of the scale function is the number of digits after the decimal point in the expression. sqrt ( expression ) The value of the sqrt function is the square root of the expression. If the expression is negative, a run time error is generated. SSTTAATTEEMMEENNTTSS Statements (as in most algebraic languages) provide the sequencing of expression evaluation. In bbcc statements are executed "as soon as possible." Execution happens when a newline in encountered and there is one or more complete statements. Due to this immediate execution, newlines are very important in bbcc. In fact, both a semicolon and a new- line are used as statement separators. An improperly placed newline will cause a syntax error. Because new- lines are statement separators, it is possible to hide a newline by using the backslash character. The sequence "\<nl>", where <nl> is the newline appears to bbcc as whitespace instead of a newline. A statement list is a series of statements separated by semicolons and newlines. The following is a list of bbcc statements and what they do: (Things enclosed in brackets ([]) are optional parts of the statement.) expression This statement does one of two things. If the expression starts with "<variable> <assignment> ...", it is considered to be an assignment state- ment. If the expression is not an assignment statement, the expression is evaluated and printed to the output. After the number is printed, a new- line is printed. For example, "a=1" is an assign- ment statement and "(a=1)" is an expression that has an embedded assignment. All numbers that are . 6 bc(1) bc(1) printed are printed in the base specified by the variable oobbaassee. The legal values for oobbaassee are 2 through BC_BASE_MAX. (See the section LIMITS.) For bases 2 through 16, the usual method of writing numbers is used. For bases greater than 16, bbcc uses a multi-character digit method of printing the numbers where each higher base digit is printed as a base 10 number. The multi-character digits are separated by spaces. Each digit contains the num- ber of characters required to represent the base ten value of "obase-1". Since numbers are of arbi- trary precision, some numbers may not be printable on a single output line. These long numbers will be split across lines using the "\" as the last character on a line. The maximum number of charac- ters printed per line is 70. Due to the interac- tive nature of bbcc printing a number cause the side effect of assigning the printed value the the spe- cial variable llaasstt. This allows the user to recover the last value printed without having to retype the expression that printed the number. Assigning to llaasstt is legal and will overwrite the last printed value with the assigned value. The newly assigned value will remain until the next number is printed or another value is assigned to llaasstt. string The string is printed to the output. Strings start with a double quote character and contain all char- acters until the next double quote character. All characters are take literally, including any new- line. No newline character is printed after the string. pprriinntt list The print statement (an extension) provides another method of output. The "list" is a list of strings and expressions separated by commas. Each string or expression is printed in the order of the list. No terminating newline is printed. Expressions are evaluated and their value is printed and assigned the the variable llaasstt. Strings in the print state- ment are printed to the output and may contain spe- cial characters. Special characters start with the backslash character (\). The special characters recognized by bbcc are "b" (bell), "f" (form feed), "n" (newline), "r" (carriage return), "t" (tab), and "\" (backslash). Any other character following the backslash will be ignored. This still does not allow the double quote character to be part of any string. { statement_list } This is the compound statement. It allows multiple statements to be grouped together for execution. . 7 bc(1) bc(1) iiff ( expression ) tthheenn statement1 [eellssee statement2] The if statement evaluates the expression and exe- cutes statement1 or statement2 depending on the value of the expression. If the expression is non- zero, statement1 is executed. If statement2 is present and the value of the expression is 0, then statement2 is executed. (The else clause is an extension.) wwhhiillee ( expression ) statement The while statement will execute the statement while the expression is non-zero. It evaluates the expression before each execution of the statement. Termination of the loop is caused by a zero expres- sion value or the execution of a break statement. ffoorr ( [expression1] ; [expression2] ; [expression3] ) statement The for statement controls repeated execution of the statement. Expression1 is evaluated before the loop. Expression2 is evaluated before each execu- tion of the statement. If it is non-zero, the statement is evaluated. If it is zero, the loop is terminated. After each execution of the statement, expression3 is evaluated before the reevaluation of expression2. If expression1 or expression3 are missing, nothing is evaluated at the point they would be evaluated. If expression2 is missing, it is the same as substituting the value 1 for expres- sion2. (The optional expressions are an extension. POSIX bbcc requires all three expressions.) The fol- lowing is equivalent code for the for statement: expression1; while (expression2) { statement; expression3; } bbrreeaakk This statement causes a forced exit of the most recent enclosing while statement or for statement. ccoonnttiinnuuee The continue statement (an extension) causes the most recent enclosing for statement to start the next iteration. hhaalltt The halt statement (an extension) is an executed statement that causes the bbcc processor to quit only when it is executed. For example, "if (0 == 1) halt" will not cause bbcc to terminate because the halt is not executed. rreettuurrnn Return the value 0 from a function. (See the sec- tion on functions.) . 8 bc(1) bc(1) rreettuurrnn ( expression ) Return the value of the expression from a function. (See the section on functions.) PPSSEEUUDDOO SSTTAATTEEMMEENNTTSS These statements are not statements in the traditional sense. They are not executed statements. Their function is performed at "compile" time. lliimmiittss Print the local limits enforced by the local ver- sion of bbcc. This is an extension. qquuiitt When the quit statement is read, the bbcc processor is terminated, regardless of where the quit state- ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit" will cause bbcc to terminate. wwaarrrraannttyy Print a longer warranty notice. This is an exten- sion. FFUUNNCCTTIIOONNSS Functions provide a method of defining a computation that can be executed later. Functions in bbcc always compute a value and return it to the caller. Function definitions are "dynamic" in the sense that a function is undefined until a definition is encountered in the input. That def- inition is then used until another definition function for the same name is encountered. The new definition then replaces the older definition. A function is defined as follows: ddeeffiinnee _n_a_m_e (( _p_a_r_a_m_e_t_e_r_s )) {{ _n_e_w_l_i_n_e _a_u_t_o___l_i_s_t _s_t_a_t_e_m_e_n_t___l_i_s_t }} A function call is just an expression of the form "_n_a_m_e((_p_a_r_a_m_e_t_e_r_s))". Parameters are numbers or arrays (an extension). In the function definition, zero or more parameters are defined by listing their names separated by commas. Numbers are only call by value parameters. Arrays are only call by variable. Arrays are specified in the parameter defini- tion by the notation "_n_a_m_e[[]]". In the function call, actual parameters are full expressions for number parame- ters. The same notation is used for passing arrays as for defining array parameters. The named array is passed by variable to the function. Since function definitions are dynamic, parameter numbers and types are checked when a function is called. Any mismatch in number or types of parameters will cause a runtime error. A runtime error will also occur for the call to an undefined function. The _a_u_t_o___l_i_s_t_i_s _a_n _o_p_t_i_o_n_a_l _l_i_s_t _o_f _v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s _t_h_a_t _a_r_e _f_o_r _"_l_o_c_a_l_" _u_s_e_. _T_h_e _s_y_n_t_a_x _o_f _t_h_e _a_u_t_o _l_i_s_t _(_i_f _p_r_e_s_e_n_t_) _i_s _"aauuttoo _n_a_m_e, ... ;". (The semicolon is optional.) Each . 9 bc(1) bc(1) _n_a_m_e is the name of an auto variable. Arrays may be spec- ified by using the same notation as used in parameters. These variables have their values pushed onto a stack at the start of the function. The variables are then ini- tialized to zero and used throughout the execution of the function. At function exit, these variables are popped so that the original value (at the time of the function call) of these variables are restored. The parameters are really auto variables that are initialized to a value pro- vided in the function call. Auto variables are different than traditional local variables in the fact that if func- tion A calls function B, B may access function A's auto variables by just using the same name, unless function B has called them auto variables. Due to the fact that auto variables and parameters are pushed onto a stack, bbcc sup- ports recursive functions. The function body is a list of bbcc statements. Again, statements are separated by semicolons or newlines. Return statements cause the termination of a function and the return of a value. There are two versions of the return statement. The first form, "rreettuurrnn", returns the value 0 to the calling expression. The second form, "rreettuurrnn (( _e_x_p_r_e_s_s_i_o_n ))", computes the value of the expres- sion and returns that value to the calling expression. There is an implied "rreettuurrnn ((00))" at the end of every func- tion. This allows a function to terminate and return 0 without an explicit return statement. Functions also change the usage of the variable iibbaassee. All constants in the function body will be converted using the value of iibbaassee at the time of the function call. Changes of iibbaassee will be ignored during the execution of the function except for the standard function rreeaadd, which will always use the current value of iibbaassee for conversion of numbers. MMAATTHH LLIIBBRRAARRYY If bbcc is invoked with the --ll option, a math library is preloaded and the default scale is set to 20. The math functions will calculate their results to the scale set at the time of their call. The math library defines the fol- lowing functions: s (_x) The sine of x in radians. c (_x) The cosine of x in radians. a (_x) The arctangent of x. l (_x) The natural logarithm of x. e (_x) The exponential function of raising e to the value x. . 10 bc(1) bc(1) j (_n_,_x) The bessel function of integer order n of x. EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS In /bin/sh, the following will assign the value of "pi" to the shell variable ppii. ppii==$$((eecchhoo ""ssccaallee==1100;; 44**aa((11))"" || bbcc --ll)) The following is the definition of the exponential func- tion used in the math library. This function is written in POSIX bbcc. ssccaallee == 2200 //** UUsseess tthhee ffaacctt tthhaatt ee^^xx == ((ee^^((xx//22))))^^22 WWhheenn xx iiss ssmmaallll eennoouugghh,, wwee uussee tthhee sseerriieess:: ee^^xx == 11 ++ xx ++ xx^^22//22!! ++ xx^^33//33!! ++ ...... **// ddeeffiinnee ee((xx)) {{ aauuttoo aa,, dd,, ee,, ff,, ii,, mm,, vv,, zz //** CChheecckk tthhee ssiiggnn ooff xx.. **// iiff ((xx<<00)) {{ mm == 11 xx == --xx }} //** PPrreeccoonnddiittiioonn xx.. **// zz == ssccaallee;; ssccaallee == 44 ++ zz ++ ..4444**xx;; wwhhiillee ((xx >> 11)) {{ ff ++== 11;; xx //== 22;; }} //** IInniittiiaalliizzee tthhee vvaarriiaabblleess.. **// vv == 11++xx aa == xx dd == 11 ffoorr ((ii==22;; 11;; ii++++)) {{ ee == ((aa **== xx)) // ((dd **== ii)) iiff ((ee ==== 00)) {{ iiff ((ff>>00)) wwhhiillee ((ff----)) vv == vv**vv;; ssccaallee == zz iiff ((mm)) rreettuurrnn ((11//vv));; rreettuurrnn ((vv//11));; }} vv ++== ee }} }} . 11 bc(1) bc(1) The following is code that uses the extended features of bbcc to implement a simple program for calculating checkbook balances. This program is best kept in a file so that it can be used many times without having to retype it at every use. ssccaallee==22 pprriinntt ""\\nnCChheecckk bbooookk pprrooggrraamm!!\\nn"" pprriinntt "" RReemmeemmbbeerr,, ddeeppoossiittss aarree nneeggaattiivvee ttrraannssaaccttiioonnss..\\nn"" pprriinntt "" EExxiitt bbyy aa 00 ttrraannssaaccttiioonn..\\nn\\nn"" pprriinntt ""IInniittiiaall bbaallaannccee?? "";; bbaall == rreeaadd(()) bbaall //== 11 pprriinntt ""\\nn"" wwhhiillee ((11)) {{ ""ccuurrrreenntt bbaallaannccee == "";; bbaall ""ttrraannssaaccttiioonn?? "";; ttrraannss == rreeaadd(()) iiff ((ttrraannss ==== 00)) bbrreeaakk;; bbaall --== ttrraannss bbaall //== 11 }} qquuiitt The following is the definition of the recursive factorial function. ddeeffiinnee ff ((xx)) {{ iiff ((xx <<== 11)) rreettuurrnn ((11));; rreettuurrnn ((ff((xx--11)) ** xx));; }} DDIIFFFFEERREENNCCEESS This version of bbcc was implemented from the POSIX P1003.2/D11 draft and contains several differences and extensions relative to the draft and traditional implemen- tations. It is not implemented in the traditional way using _d_c_(_1_)_. This version is a single process which parses and runs a byte code translation of the program. There is an "undocumented" option (-c) that causes the program to output the byte code to the standard output instead of running it. It was mainly used for debugging the parser and preparing the math library. A major source of differences is extensions, where a fea- ture is extended to add more functionality and additions, where new features are added. The following is the list of differences and extensions. LANG This version does not conform to the POSIX standard in the processing of the LANG environment variable and all environment variables starting with LC_. . 12 bc(1) bc(1) names Traditional and POSIX bbcc have single letter names for functions, variables and arrays. They have been extended to be multi-character names that start with a letter and may contain letters, num- bers and the underscore character. Strings Strings are not allowed to contain NUL characters. POSIX says all characters must be included in strings. last POSIX bbcc does not have a llaasstt variable. Some implementations of bbcc use the period (.) in a simi- lar way. comparisons POSIX bbcc allows comparisons only in the if state- ment, the while statement, and the second expres- sion of the for statement. Also, only one rela- tional operation is allowed in each of those state- ments. if statement, else clause POSIX bbcc does not have an else clause. for statement POSIX bbcc requires all expressions to be present in the for statement. &&, ||, ! POSIX bbcc does not have the logical operators. read function POSIX bbcc does not have a read function. print statement POSIX bbcc does not have a print statement . continue statement POSIX bbcc does not have a continue statement. array parameters POSIX bbcc does not have array parameters. Other implementations of bbcc may have call by value array parameters. =+, =-, =*, =/, =%, =^ POSIX bbcc does not require these "old style" assign- ment operators to be defined. This version may allow these "old style" assignments. Use the lim- its statement to see if the installed version sup- ports them. If it does support the "old style" assignment operators, the statement "a =- 1" will decrement aa by 1 instead of setting aa to the value . 13 bc(1) bc(1) -1. spaces in numbers Other implementations of bbcc allow spaces in num- bers. For example, "x=1 3" would assign the value 13 to the variable x. The same statement would cause a syntax error in this version of bbcc. errors and execution This implementation varies from other implementa- tions in terms of what code will be executed when syntax and other errors are found in the program. If a syntax error is found in a function defini- tion, error recovery tries to find the beginning of a statement and continue to parse the function. Once a syntax error is found in the function, the function will not be callable and becomes unde- fined. Syntax errors in the interactive execution code will invalidate the current execution block. The execution block is terminated by an end of line that appears after a complete sequence of state- ments. For example, a = 1 b = 2 has two execution blocks and { a = 1 b = 2 } has one execution block. Any runtime error will terminate the execution of the current execution block. A runtime warning will not terminate the current execution block. Interrupts During an interactive session, the SIGINT signal (usually generated by the control-C character from the terminal) will cause execution of the current execution block to be interrupted. It will display a "runtime" error indicating which function was interrupted. After all runtime structures have been cleaned up, a message will be printed to notify the user that bbcc is ready for more input. All previously defined functions remain defined and the value of all non-auto variables are the value at the point of interruption. All auto variables and function parameters are removed during the clean up process. During a non-interactive ses- sion, the SIGINT signal will terminate the entire run of bbcc. LLIIMMIITTSS The following are the limits currently in place for this bbcc processor. Some of them may have been changed by an installation. Use the limits statement to see the actual values. . 14 bc(1) bc(1) BC_BASE_MAX The maximum output base is currently set at 999. The maximum input base is 16. BC_DIM_MAX This is currently an arbitrary limit of 65535 as distributed. Your installation may be different. BC_SCALE_MAX The number of digits after the decimal point is limited to INT_MAX digits. Also, the number of digits before the decimal point is limited to INT_MAX digits. BC_STRING_MAX The limit on the number of characters in a string is INT_MAX characters. exponent The value of the exponent in the raise operation (^) is limited to LONG_MAX. multiply The multiply routine may yield incorrect results if a number has more than LONG_MAX / 90 total digits. For 32 bit longs, this number is 23,860,929 digits. code size Each function and the "main" program are limited to 10240 bytes of compiled byte code each. This limit (BC_MAX_SEGS) can be easily changed to have more than 10 segments of 1024 bytes. variable names The current limit on the number of unique names is 32767 for each of simple variables, arrays and functions. FFIILLEESS In most installations, bbcc is completely self-contained. Where executable size is of importance or the C compiler does not deal with very long strings, bbcc will read the standard math library from the file /usr/local/lib/libmath.b. (The actual location may vary. It may be /lib/libmath.b.) DDIIAAGGNNOOSSTTIICCSS If any file on the command line can not be opened, bbcc will report that the file is unavailable and terminate. Also, there are compile and run time diagnostics that should be self-explanatory. BBUUGGSS Error recovery is not very good yet. . 15 bc(1) bc(1) AAUUTTHHOORR Philip A. Nelson phil@cs.wwu.edu AACCKKNNOOWWLLEEDDGGEEMMEENNTTSS The author would like to thank Steve Sommars (sesv@iwtsf.att.com) for his extensive help in testing the implementation. Many great suggestions were given. This is a much better product due to his involvement. . 16