comparing two float values

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I am trying to compare 2 float values using if

the foll code does not work

a=1.4
b=1.6

if test $a -gt $b
then
echo "$a is max"
else
echo "$b is max"
fi

does -gt work for floating point numbers, if not how do go about for my requirement? can i use bc ? pls help

thanks in advance
kavitha

2

You could use awk...

a=1.4
b=1.6

awk 'BEGIN{if ('$a'>'$b') exit 1}'
if [ $? -eq 1 ]
then
echo "$a is max"
else
echo "$b is max"
fi

3 
a=1.4
b=1.6
awk 'BEGIN{if('$a'>'$b')print '$a'" is max";else print '$b'" is max"}'