Subject: bug#24561: Unmathematical bc exponentiation behavior

From: "Martens, Tobias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:48:27 +0000

Hey,

echo "-(1)^2" | bc
1

I would have expected -1. This behavior is unmathematical and very confusing, because otherwise bc acts quite logic.
Not sure if it is mandated by POSIX, atleast I could not find it to be in the section of exponentiation operator. Was this ever discussed?
Resolving "-(positive float)" to "(-1)*(positive float)" for intern calculation seems more appropriate to me and would give the desired results.