bcal

REPL CLI calculator for storage expressions and byte conversions

TLDR

Evaluate an arithmetic expression with storage units

$ bcal "(5kb+2mb)/3"

Convert a value to all storage units

$ bcal 0xaabbcc kb

Show binary, decimal and hex representations of a number

$ bcal -c 20140115

Perform bitwise operations

$ bcal -b '0xFF & 0x0F'

Use as a general-purpose calculator

$ bcal -b '3.5 * 2.1 + 5.7'

Convert LBA to CHS

$ bcal -f l500

Convert CHS to LBA

$ bcal -f c10-10-10

Start interactive REPL mode

$ bcal

SYNOPSIS

bcal [-b [expr]] [-c N] [-p N] [-f loc] [-s bytes] [expr] [N [unit]] [-m] [-d] [-h]

bcal (Byte CALculator) is a command-line utility for calculations and expressions involving binary prefixes, SI/IEC conversion, byte addressing, base conversion, and LBA/CHS calculation. It also supports general-purpose arithmetic, bitwise operations, and mathematical functions.Storage expressions support the operators +, -, \*, /, % with units such as B, KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, kB, MB, GB, and TB. Units are case-insensitive. Hex values are prefixed with 0x and binary values with 0b.In general-purpose mode (-b), bcal supports bitwise operations: AND (&), OR (|), XOR (^), complement (~), left shift (<<), and right shift (>>). Mathematical functions include exp(n), log(base, n), ln(n), pow(n, exponent), and root(radical, n).When started without arguments, bcal enters an interactive REPL mode. The last valid result is stored in the variable r and can be reused in subsequent expressions. In the REPL, press b to toggle between storage and general-purpose modes, c N for base conversion, p N for bit positions, s for storage type sizes, and q or double Enter to quit.bcal works with piped input and file redirection, making it suitable for scripted workflows. Precision is 128-bit when __uint128_t is available, otherwise 64-bit. Floating-point operations use long double arithmetic.

PARAMETERS

-b [expr]

Start general-purpose REPL mode. If an expression is provided, evaluate it and quit.

-c N

Show decimal, binary and hex representation of positive integer N.

-p N

Show bit positions and bit values of a number.

-f loc

Convert CHS to LBA or LBA to CHS. The location is a hyphen-separated representation.

-s bytes

Sector size in bytes. Default value is 512.

-m

Show minimal output (e.g. decimal bytes only).

-d

Enable debug information and logs.

-h

Show help, storage sizes on the system, and exit.

CONFIGURATION

History file

REPL history is stored at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bcal/history, or $HOME/.config/bcal/history if XDGCONFIGHOME is unset.

BCAL_BIT_ANSI_COLOR_CODE

Environment variable to set the ANSI escape code for colorizing bit value 1 in -p output. Set to empty to disable coloring.

CAVEATS

Only 64-bit operating systems are supported. Fractional bytes do not exist and cannot be addressed; bcal shows the floor value of non-integer byte results. Negative values in storage expressions are unsupported.LBA and CHS format conversion arguments must be hyphen-separated. LBA values are prefixed with l and CHS values with c. Any unspecified value defaults to 0.Default disk geometry values are: sector size 512, max heads per cylinder 16, max sectors per track 63.

HISTORY

bcal was created by Arun Prakash Jana and released in 2016 as open-source software under the GPLv3+ license. It is written in C with minimal dependencies (libc and optionally GNU Readline or BSD Editline).