How do I calculate the log of a number using bc?

Question

This is the first time I am using bc. I want to calculate the log (base 10) of a number. How do I this?

Answer 1

Python can come in handy for this as,

log3=$(python -c  'import math; print math.log(3)')

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

If you start bc with the -l switch, then there's a function l() that calculates the natural log of its argument.