fish-shell/doc_src/cmds/math.rst
Johannes Altmanninger c0d1e41313 docs synopsis: add HTML highlighing and automate manpage markup
Recent synopsis changes move from literal code blocks to
[RST line blocks].  This does not translate well to HTML: it's not
rendered in monospace, so aligment is lost.  Additionally, we don't
get syntax highlighting in HTML, which adds differences to our code
samples which are highlighted.

We hard-wrap synopsis lines (like code blocks). To align continuation
lines in manpages we need [backslashes in weird places]. Combined with
the **, *, and `` markup, it's a bit hard to get the alignment right.

Fix these by moving synopsis sources back to code blocks and compute
HTML syntax highlighting and manpage markup with a custom Sphinx
extension.

The new Pygments lexer can tokenize a synopsis and assign the various
highlighting roles, which closely matches fish's syntax highlighing:
- command/keyword (dark blue)
- parameter (light blue)
- operator like and/or/not/&&/|| (cyan)
- grammar metacharacter (black)

For manpage output, we don't project the fish syntax highlighting
but follow the markup convention in GNU's man(1):

	bold text          type exactly as shown.
	italic text        replace with appropriate argument.

To make it easy to separate these two automatically, formalize that
(italic) placeholders must be uppercase; while all lowercase text is
interpreted literally (so rendered bold).
This makes manpages more consistent, see string-join(1) and and(1).

Implementation notes:
Since we want manpage formatting but Sphinx's Pygments highlighing
plugin does not support manpage output, add our custom "synopsis"
directive.  This directive parses differently when manpage output is
specified. This means that the HTML and manpage build processes must
not share a cache, because the parsed doctrees are cached.  Work around
this by using separate cache locations for build targets "sphinx-docs"
(which creates HTML) and "sphinx-manpages".  A better solution would
be to only override Sphinx's ManualPageBuilder but that would take a
bit more code (ideally we could override ManualPageWriter but Sphinx
4.3.2 doesn't really support that).

---

Alternative solution: stick with line blocks but use roles like
:command: or :option: (or custom ones). While this would make it
possible to produce HTML that is consistent with code blocks (by adding
a bit of CSS), the source would look uglier and is harder to maintain.
(Let's say we want to add custom formatting to the [|] metacharacters
in HTML.  This is much easier with the proposed patch.)

---

[RST line blocks]: https://docutils.sourceforge.io/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html#line-blocks
[backslashes in weird places]: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/pull/8626#discussion_r782837750
2022-01-19 22:56:41 +08:00

197 lines
6.5 KiB
ReStructuredText

.. _cmd-math:
math - perform mathematics calculations
=======================================
Synopsis
--------
.. synopsis::
math [(-s | --scale) N] [(-b | --base) BASE] EXPRESSION ...
Description
-----------
``math`` performs mathematical calculations.
It supports simple operations such as addition, subtraction, and so on, as well as functions like ``abs()``, ``sqrt()`` and ``ln()``.
By default, the output is a floating-point number with trailing zeroes trimmed.
To get a fixed representation, the ``--scale`` option can be used, including ``--scale=0`` for integer output.
Keep in mind that parameter expansion happens before expressions are evaluated.
This can be very useful in order to perform calculations involving shell variables or the output of command substitutions, but it also means that parenthesis (``()``) and the asterisk (``*``) glob character have to be escaped or quoted.
``x`` can also be used to denote multiplication, but it needs to be followed by whitespace to distinguish it from hexadecimal numbers.
Parentheses for functions are optional - ``math sin pi`` prints ``0``.
However, a comma will bind to the inner function, so ``math pow sin 3, 5`` is an error because it tries to give ``sin`` the arguments ``3`` and ``5``.
When in doubt, use parentheses.
``math`` ignores whitespace between arguments and takes its input as multiple arguments (internally joined with a space), so ``math 2 +2`` and ``math "2 + 2"`` work the same.
``math 2 2`` is an error.
The following options are available:
**-s** *N* or **--scale** *N*
Sets the scale of the result.
``N`` must be an integer or the word "max" for the maximum scale.
A scale of zero causes results to be rounded down to the nearest integer.
So ``3/2`` returns ``1`` rather than ``2`` which ``1.5`` would normally round to.
This is for compatibility with ``bc`` which was the basis for this command prior to fish 3.0.0.
Scale values greater than zero causes the result to be rounded using the usual rules to the specified number of decimal places.
**-b** *BASE* or **--base** *BASE*
Sets the numeric base used for output (``math`` always understands hexadecimal numbers as input).
It currently understands "hex" or "16" for hexadecimal and "octal" or "8" for octal and implies a scale of 0 (other scales cause an error), so it will truncate the result down to an integer.
This might change in the future.
Hex numbers will be printed with a ``0x`` prefix.
Octal numbers will have a prefix of ``0`` but aren't understood by ``math`` as input.
Return Values
-------------
If the expression is successfully evaluated and doesn't over/underflow or return NaN the return ``status`` is zero (success) else one.
Syntax
------
``math`` knows some operators, constants, functions and can (obviously) read numbers.
For numbers, ``.`` is always the radix character regardless of locale - ``2.5``, not ``2,5``.
Scientific notation (``10e5``) and hexadecimal (``0xFF``) are also available.
Operators
---------
``math`` knows the following operators:
``+``
for addition
``-``
for subtraction
``*`` or ``x``
for multiplication
``/``
for division
(Note that ``*`` is the glob character and needs to be quoted or escaped, ``x`` needs to be followed by whitespace or it looks like ``0x`` hexadecimal notation.)
``^``
for exponentiation
``%``
for modulo
``(`` or ``)``
for grouping.
(These need to be quoted or escaped because ``()`` denotes a command substitution.)
They are all used in an infix manner - ``5 + 2``, not ``+ 5 2``.
Constants
---------
``math`` knows the following constants:
``e``
Euler's number
``pi``
π, you know this one.
Half of Tau
``tau``
Equivalent to 2π, or the number of radians in a circle
Use them without a leading ``$`` - ``pi - 3`` should be about 0.
Functions
---------
``math`` supports the following functions:
``abs``
the absolute value, with positive sign
``acos``
arc cosine
``asin``
arc sine
``atan``
arc tangent
``atan2``
arc tangent of two variables
``bitand``, ``bitor`` and ``bitxor``
perform bitwise operations.
These will throw away any non-integer parts andd interpret the rest as an int.
``ceil``
round number up to nearest integer
``cos``
the cosine
``cosh``
hyperbolic cosine
``exp``
the base-e exponential function
``fac``
factorial - also known as ``x!`` (``x * (x - 1) * (x - 2) * ... * 1``)
``floor``
round number down to nearest integer
``ln``
the base-e logarithm
``log`` or ``log10``
the base-10 logarithm
``log2``
the base-2 logarithm
``max``
returns the larger of two numbers
``min``
returns the smaller of two numbers
``ncr``
"from n choose r" combination function - how many subsets of size r can be taken from n (order doesn't matter)
``npr``
the number of subsets of size r that can be taken from a set of n elements (including different order)
``pow(x,y)``
returns x to the y (and can be written as ``x ^ y``)
``round``
rounds to the nearest integer, away from 0
``sin``
the sine function
``sinh``
the hyperbolic sine
``sqrt``
the square root - (can also be written as ``x ^ 0.5``)
``tan``
the tangent
``tanh``
the hyperbolic tangent
All of the trigonometric functions use radians (the pi-based scale, not 360°).
Examples
--------
``math 1+1`` outputs 2.
``math $status - 128`` outputs the numerical exit status of the last command minus 128.
``math 10 / 6`` outputs ``1.666667``.
``math -s0 10.0 / 6.0`` outputs ``1``.
``math -s3 10 / 6`` outputs ``1.666``.
``math "sin(pi)"`` outputs ``0``.
``math 5 \* 2`` or ``math "5 * 2"`` or ``math 5 "*" 2`` all output ``10``.
``math 0xFF`` outputs 255, ``math 0 x 3`` outputs 0 (because it computes 0 multiplied by 3).
``math bitand 0xFE, 0x2e`` outputs 46.
``math "bitor(9,2)"`` outputs 11.
``math --base=hex 192`` prints ``0xc0``.
``math 'ncr(49,6)'`` prints 13983816 - that's the number of possible picks in 6-from-49 lotto.
Compatibility notes
-------------------
Fish 1.x and 2.x releases relied on the ``bc`` command for handling ``math`` expressions. Starting with fish 3.0.0 fish uses the tinyexpr library and evaluates the expression without the involvement of any external commands.
You don't need to use ``--`` before the expression, even if it begins with a minus sign which might otherwise be interpreted as an invalid option. If you do insert ``--`` before the expression, it will cause option scanning to stop just like for every other command and it won't be part of the expression.