Command Line Currency Converter For Linux

March 19, 2010 at 8:53 pm | LINUX | 8 comments

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currency-convertMany times I prefer to just work from the shell. The ~/.bashrc file is a great place to put functions if you are using them regularly.

Let’s build a cool command line currency converter using google’s currency converter. You might require wget or curl and sed to do this.

Just run the following command in terminal.

wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a=1&from=usd&to=inr&hl=es" |  sed '/res/!d;s/<[^>]*>//g';

This will convert 1 USD to INR (Indian Rupee).
Output:

1 USD = 45.4950 INR

What we are doing is, query google using wget and parse the output using sed.

You can use curl as well:

curl -s "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a=1&from=usd&to=inr&hl=es" |  sed '/res/!d;s/<[^>]*>//g';

Isn’t that a long command. Lets create a cool bash function for the ease use:
Open you ~/.bashrc file in your favorite text editor and add the following lines and save.

currency_convert() {
  wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a=$1&from=$2&to=$3&hl=es" |  sed '/res/!d;s/<[^>]*>//g';
}

Now Run:

$ currency_convert 10 usd inr
10 USD = 454.9500 INR

If you want to convert to more than one currencies at once, rewrite our function as bellow.

currency_convert() {
  for i in $3
  do
    wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a=$1&from=$2&to=$i&hl=es" |  sed '/res/!d;s/<[^>]*>//g';
  done
}

Now run:

$ currency_convert 1 usd "inr gbp eur"
1 USD = 45.4950 INR
1 USD = 0.6603 GBP
1 USD = 0.7382 EUR

Happy currency converting :-)

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 8:53 pm and is filed under LINUX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Command Line Currency Converter For Linux”

  1. Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump says:
    March 20, 2010 at 12:47 am

    [...] rest is here: Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: entry, friday, linux, posted-on-friday, [...]

  2. handband2 says:
    March 20, 2010 at 1:05 am

    How about a script like the following:

    #!/bin/bash
    ## http://www.google.com/finance/converter

    AMOUNT=`zenity --width=250 --title='Currency Converter' --text='Please enter US dollar (USD) amount' --entry`

    if [ "${AMOUNT}" == "" ]; then
    zenity --error --text="Amount not defined by user.
    Exiting. "
    exit 1
    fi

    (echo "European Euro (EUR)"; wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a="$AMOUNT"&from=usd&to=eur" | sed '/res/!d;s/]*>//g';
    echo "Brazilian Real (BRL)"; wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a="$AMOUNT"&from=usd&to=brl" | sed '/res/!d;s/]*>//g';
    echo "Mexican Peso (MXN)"; wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a="$AMOUNT"&from=usd&to=mxn" | sed '/res/!d;s/]*>//g';
    echo "Argentine Peso (ARS)"; wget -qO- "http://www.google.com/finance/converter?a="$AMOUNT"&from=usd&to=ars" | sed '/res/!d;s/]*>//g';) | zenity --width=300 --height=300 --text-info --title "Converted Currency"

  3. Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump says:
    March 20, 2010 at 1:22 am

    [...] Excerpt from: Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump [...]

  4. Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump says:
    March 20, 2010 at 2:07 am

    [...] more: Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump ???????: ?????? ??????? | ?????: 2-0-feed-, entry, friday, linux, [...]

  5. matelot says:
    March 20, 2010 at 10:24 pm

    I’d rather just go to the web page

  6. Links 23/3/2010: KDE 4.4.1 in Mandriva 2010, Demand for GNU/Linux Skills Grows | Boycott Novell says:
    March 23, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    [...] Command Line Currency Converter For Linux [...]

  7. Destillat #16 | duetsch.info - Open Source, Wet-, Web-, Software says:
    March 27, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    [...] Command Line Currency Converter For Linux [...]

  8. What Are Google Gadgets? | www.googlegadgets.co.uk says:
    March 28, 2010 at 3:42 am

    [...] Command Line Currency Converter For Linux « Core Dump [...]

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