EXPR
Section: User Commands (1)
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BSD mandoc
NAME
expr
- evaluate expression
SYNOPSIS
expression
DESCRIPTION
The
utility evaluates
expression
and writes the result on standard output.
All operators are separate arguments to the
utility.
Characters special to the command interpreter must be escaped.
Operators are listed below in order of increasing precedence.
Operators with equal precedence are grouped within { } symbols.
- expr1 | expr2
-
Returns the evaluation of
expr1
if it is neither an empty string nor zero;
otherwise, returns the evaluation of
expr2
- expr1 & expr2
-
Returns the evaluation of
expr1
if neither expression evaluates to an empty string or zero;
otherwise, returns zero.
- expr1 {=, >, >=, <, <=, !=} expr2
-
Returns the results of integer comparison if both arguments are integers;
otherwise, returns the results of string comparison using the locale-specific
collation sequence.
The result of each comparison is 1 if the specified relation is true,
or 0 if the relation is false.
- expr1 {+, -} expr2
-
Returns the results of addition or subtraction of integer-valued arguments.
- expr1 {*, /, %} expr2
-
Returns the results of multiplication, integer division, or remainder of integer-valued arguments.
- expr1 : expr2
-
The
``:''
operator matches
expr1
against
expr2
which must be a regular expression. The regular expression is anchored
to the beginning of the string with an implicit
``^''
If the match succeeds and the pattern contains at least one regular
expression subexpression
``\(...\) , ''
the string corresponding to
``\1''
is returned;
otherwise the matching operator returns the number of characters matched.
If the match fails and the pattern contains a regular expression subexpression
the null string is returned;
otherwise 0.
Parentheses are used for grouping in the usual manner.
EXAMPLES
-
The following example adds one to the variable a.
a=`expr $a + 1`
-
The following example returns the filename portion of a pathname stored
in variable a. The // characters act to eliminate ambiguity with the
division operator.
expr "//$a" : '.*/\(.*\)'
-
The following example returns the number of characters in variable a.
expr $a : '.*'
DIAGNOSTICS
The
utility exits with one of the following values:
- 0
-
the expression is neither an empty string nor 0.
- 1
-
the expression is an empty string or 0.
- 2
-
the expression is invalid.
STANDARDS
The
utility conforms to
St -p1003.2 .
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- DIAGNOSTICS
-
- STANDARDS
-
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