can print base 64 numbers in base 10 but not visa versa

[Dan Jacobson]

It seems in bash all I can do is print base 64 things out in base 10,
but not base 10 things out in base 64?

all I can do is make things get longer, not compress them, at least if
my goal is beyond base 16, no?

$ echo $((44#434)) 
7880

anyways. is there some other shell utility that will do what I want?
I see bc has obase...
echo obase=64\; `date +%s`|bc
 60 25 56 24 30

wait [forget printf(1)'s %c]...

$ echo obase=26\; `date +%s`|bc|awk '{for (i=1;i<=NF;i++)printf 
"%c",$i+97;print ""}'
dhhrezz
$ echo obase=26\; `date +%s`|bc|awk '{for (i=1;i<=NF;i++)printf 
"%c",$i+97;print ""}'
dhhrfaa

OK, I've got it contained within a safe stretch of ascii for a
filename... ok, that was a fun exercise.  enough excitement for
now. conclusion: why doesn't bash catch up to kornshell?

|doesn't use *all* printing characters, but in ksh93, you can do:
|
|typeset -i64 date=$(date +%s)
|print ${date#64#}

>>>>> "Dan" == Dan Jacobson <jidanni@deadspam.com> writes:

Dan> What's the shortest way I can express a time string using all printing
Dan> characters?

Dan> E.g.
Dan> $ date +%s
Dan> 1013147079 #is my time string, it's nice, but too long

Dan> $ printf %x\\n $(date +%s)
Dan> 3c6365ee #is nicer, but why limit myself to just the hex range? what 
command
Dan> could pull more letters into play, but still leave it sortable by, say,
Dan> ls(1) if these stings were used in filenames.

[posted separately to bash & c.u.shell groups]
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