Testing for numbers

[Pando]

I have a lotid inside a file with the following patterns
....
....
DIFFLOTID, 1234
....
....

where 1234 is the lotid.
I would like to ask, how can i test it if the lotid contains other character other than numbers.
Maximum points to all correct replies.

[Michael Roberts_3]

awk -F"," {if ($2 !~ /[[:alpha:]]/ )
print $0" OK lotid"
else
print $0" bad lotid"
' fileWithLotids

[john korterman]

Hi,
another possibility is to read the field and delete all numeric charecters from it to check if something still remains - as in the attached script, which can be run like this:
# attached.sh

regards,
John K.

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,
Another solution is to assign the value to a integer variable (typeset -i . If the value is not an integer you get an error message and $? is set to 1.

[Pando]

Hello John and Michael,

Thanks for the replies. My querries are, test 1234 as numeric or alphanumeric. The field DIFFLOTID either contains 1234 or 1234ver value. The reason i would like to test the value is because most value should contain numerics only but somehow i saw some value with alphanumerics e.g., 1234a, cor_1234 etc..
I currently get the value of DIFFLOTID using the command below:

Var=$(awk -F "," '/DIFFLOTID/ {print $2}' $FILE)

The $Var now contains the value and i need to test it if $Var is numeric or alphanumeric.
If the $Var is alphanumeric, i need to move it to a temporary directory.

Many thanks for your help.

[Bharat Katkar]

Hi,
var1=1
((var2=var/var1))
if [ $? -ne 0 ]
then
echo " It's a Alphanumeric Character"
else
echo "it's a numeric character "
fi

Hope that works.
Regards,