printf in bash shell not printing negative values

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

hi i am using printf in a script and it is not printing negative values..i have to use printf to get rid of the newline..here is my code:

fin=`echo $a - $b | bc`
printf "${fin}," >> test

these statements are in a loop. here is what i get when i try to subtract 4 from 8:

./scr1: line 58: printf: -4: invalid option
printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]
./scr1: line 58: printf: -4: invalid option
printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]
./scr1: line 58: printf: -4: invalid option
printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]
./scr1: line 58: printf: -4: invalid option
printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]
./scr1: line 58: printf: -4: invalid option
printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments]

what can i do to get rid of this error?

2

Hope this helps:

fin[i]=`echo $a - $b | bc`

printf "%d" ${fin[i]}

or

printf "%d\n" ${fin[i]}

3

ok that worked! thanks a lot..