Setting Input field to 2 decimal points (Price)

Question

I am currently trying to input prices into a .txt file.

So i want it when the user input:1.1

Instead of 1.1, I want it to become 1.10 instead. As it would look better for the table I am trying to make in the future. I would also like to round up or down if it goes more than 3 decimal places. (Thanks john1024 for the correction)

So... `read x; printf '%.2f\n' "$x"` maybe? See `help printf` and `man 3 printf` — steeldriver, Jan 19 '18 at 03:22
umm. But i don't want it to just print 2 decimal places. I want it to store the additional 0 at the back. Similarly for the other decimal places. — pandora, Jan 19 '18 at 03:27
To store the additional zero in variable `x2`: `read x; printf -v x2 '%.02f' "$x"` — John1024, Jan 19 '18 at 03:40
Possible duplicate of [AWK with one decimal place](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/383378/awk-with-one-decimal-place) — αғsнιη, Jan 20 '18 at 08:44
See also [How can I add (subtract, etc...) numbers with bash?](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/93029/80216) — G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica', Jan 21 '18 at 06:14

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 20 '18 at 08:22

To read in a price and coerce it to have 2 decimal places, try:

read -p "Enter the price: " var
printf -v var '%.2f' "$var"

The %.2f format tells printf to use two-decimal digits.

Examples:

$ read -p "Enter the price: " var; printf -v var '%.2f' "$var"; echo "var=$var"
Enter the price: 1.2
var=1.20
$ read -p "Enter the price: " var; printf -v var '%.2f' "$var"; echo "var=$var"
Enter the price: 1.123
var=1.12

Note: Bash can format numbers with decimal points but it cannot do addition, subtraction, or other arithmetic on such floating point numbers. For that, you will need other tools like awk or bc or zsh.

Setting Input field to 2 decimal points (Price)

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