title: convert scientific notation to decimal in bash
body: <p>I would like to convert a number that is stored in scientific notation into a floating point decimal, so I can then perform some comparisons on the data.  This is being done in a bash script - here is a small snippet of the code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>while read track_id landfall_num gate_id pres_inter
  do
    if [[ $landfall_num == 0001 ]]
    then
       start_flag = true
       echo DING DING $start_flag
       if [[ $pres_inter &lt; 97000 ]]
       then
          echo Strong Storm From North $track_id, $gate_id, $pres_inter
       fi
    fi
  done &lt; $file
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My problem is that my <code>&lt;</code> operand is selecting basically all of the pressure values, which are stored in scientific notation, when I use <code>&lt;</code>, and none when I use <code>&gt;</code>.  I am looking at atmospheric pressure measurements in pascals rather than millibars.  </p>
  
  <p>Here is sample output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Strong Storm From North 0039988 0017 1.0074E+05
  
  Strong Storm From North 0037481 0018 9.9831E+04
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Neither of these storms should be meeting the selection criteria!</p>