How can i devide decimal numbers?

I am getting this kind of error:
line 18: 200.2/40.234: syntax error in expression (error token is ".2/40.234")

What can i do to work around this problem?

Thanks for any advice.

kcsdev:/home/jmcnama>  var=`echo "scale=12;  .2  / 40.234"|bc`

What does scale=12 mean?

I encountered another problem whenever i devide a smaller number by a bigger number i.e. 4/9 instead of getting the answer as 0.4444444444 i just get 0

Why is that, and what can i do t oget the right answer?

It's the same issue - the shell you're using can't deal with non-integers.

Use the same technique as jim has shown - pipe the expression through to the bc function.