On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:19:53 +0200, Thomas Keusch <f...@bsd-solutions-duesseldorf.de> wrote: > t...@eternity:~$ b=5 > t...@eternity:~$ case "$b" in >> [0-9] ) >> echo numeric >> ;; >> * ) >> echo alpha >> ;; >> esac > numeric > t...@eternity:~$ > > Works for me.
Depending on what "numeric" means, this may be ok. For other numeric values (e.g. floating point numbers) There are simple, fast and correct ways to check but you have to escape from the shell, e.g.: $ var=3.1415926535897931 $ python -c "$var + 0.0" >/dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $? 0 $ var=3a.1415926535897931 $ python -c "$var + 0.0" >/dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $? 1 The overhead of spawning a full-blown language interpreter like Perl or Python may be acceptable if you have to check "a few" values. Then it may be overkill if you want to check a million values. It's really up to you, as a programmer, to pick the right method. _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"