I'm trying to write a script that compare's some numeric values in a file, but in one of the files the value always has leading zero's. For example -

temp_8719_LM344_20031216091826: printera : 552 : 276 : 552 : 276

temp_8719_LM344_20031216091826: printera : 000552 :000276 : 000552 : 000276

How or what coding can I use to ignore these leading zeros?

Good Morning,

well it depends on how many digits your numbers are max. If you can say, that you have only numbers with maxium 10 digits, you can read the values, and convert them to your maxiumum digit size with leading zeros, so you will have on both sides the same format and you can easily compare.

If you don't have a maxium size of digits, you should read the values as string first and use awk to remove leading zeros.

Regards
malcom

Thanks for your reply

What is the best and most efficient coding to use in awk?

In awk...

awk '{gsub(": *0*",": ")};1' $InFile > $OutFile

In sed...

sed 's/: *0*/: /g' $InFile > $OutFile

However, this conversion is not necessary if you are comparing numbers in a script when you use "-eq" and "-ne" instead of "=" and "!="

Thanks very much

However, this conversion is not necessary if you are comparing numbers in a script when you use "-eq" and "-ne" instead of "=" and "!="

Ygor brings up a good point that many people either forget or ignore. Integer comparison uses -eq, -lt, -gt, -ge etc while string comparison is done using = !=