ksh Arithmetic syntax error while comparing decimal numbers

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello,

  I am having a problem when i execute following script on RHEL 6.4. Same script works fine on another machine where I have same version of RHEL and KSH.

Below is the rpm and RHEL version.

ossvm12(0)> rpm -qa | grep ksh
ksh-20100621-19.el6.x86_64
[/root]
ossvm12(0)> cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.4 (Santiago)

With same RHEL and rpm version the script works fine on another machine.
I am trying to figure out what can effect this simple check "-ge" in ksh.

#!/bin/ksh
i=10
j=10.1

if [ $i -ge $j ]
then
echo "$i ge $j"
fi

In above script i have hard coded i and j for demo purpose. I have given -x option to get the debug info. Below is how i get it it.

[root@snmp1 ~]# /tmp/t.ksh
+ i=10
+ j=10.01
+ [ 10 -ge 10.01 ]
/tmp/t.ksh[5]: [: 10.01: arithmetic syntax error
[root@snmp1 ~]

I know "[" will invoke "test" command. But when i have same version fo KSH and RHEL on 2 machines, why does above script have different results ?

Somehow the "-ge" option is not working.

I even verified checksum of /bin/ksh93 which gets shipped in rpm on these 2 machines. Both are same.

What could be the cause ? Any more information needed ? Please help.

2

there's no 'floating number' arithmetic in ksh AFAIK.

3

Try:-

if [ $(($i)) -ge $(($j)) ]
.....

---------- Post updated at 06:24 PM ---------- Previous update was at 06:21 PM ----------

'ksh' can do floating point arithmetic at least on 1993 versions...

4

-- KSH-93 - The KornShell Command and Programming Language

5

Yes KSH supports floating point arithmetic. I am not getting why its behaving weirdly in 1 machine when it works on the other. What can cause this sort of problem is what I am looking for.

Thanks,
Adithya

6

The most likely cause is that you're using a 1993 version of ksh on the system where it works, but using a 1988 version of ksh or some non- ksh shell on the other system.

What is the output from the commands:

type ksh
echo $SHELL
ksh --version
/bin/ksh --version

on the system where your code works.

What is the output from those same commands on the system where it doesn't work?

7

Hello,

     Thanks all for your time. Actually the problem was with the LC_ALL configuration. On the machine where there was arithmetic syntax error it was "fr_FR.UTF-8".

If I set the LC_ALL to "fr_FR.UTF-8" as shown below I can reproduce the problem.

root(0)> LC_ALL=fr_FR.UTF-8
[/root]
root(0)> locale
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=fr_FR.UTF-8
[/root]
root(0)> cat /tmp/t.ksh
#!/bin/ksh

i=10
j=10.01

if [ $i -ge $j ]
then
        echo "$i is ge $j"
else
        echo "$j is ge $i"
fi
[/root]
root(0)> /tmp/t.ksh
/tmp/t.ksh[6]: [: 10.01: arithmetic syntax error
10.01 is ge 10

To solve the problem, set LC_ALL=C.

root(0)> LC_ALL=C
[/root]
root(0)> /tmp/t.ksh
10.01 is ge 10
[/root]

Thanks,
Adithya

2 Likes
8

It really wants 10,01 (comma). How awful is that?
At least, in RedHat 5 I get consequently

LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
ksh: [: 10.01: erreur arithmétique de syntaxe
LC_CTYPE="de_DE@euro"
ksh: [: 10.01: arithmetischer Syntaxfehler