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).