Parse error

hi,
onsider the followinf two lines

J="$(scriptbc -p 8 $I / \(12 \* 100 \) )"
N="$(( $L * 12 ))"

In the first line I put \ before * like \* and its working fine.
But in the second line if put \ before * i am getting parse error.
What might be the reason?Any idea pls.
cheers
RRK

In the first case, you are running a subshell ( $() ) and need to escape the * to prevent the shell from interpreting it. The second line is simple multiplication in ksh/bash ( $(()) ). You don't need to escape the * in that case.