Hi, I read in this forum that for "[: : integer expression expected" error, redirect the error message (2> /dev/null ) which can hide it.. is this a proper solution for the problem.. please let me know?

http://www.unix.com/shell-programmin...xpression.html

thanks!

It may be desirable or necessary at times to get rid of standard error in this way, but in the case you point to, "proper" would be to fix the code.

in my script, I am comparing the date values.. when DATE_OF_RUN_DB can't be a no value, Actual_Date can have no value.. and this is where I get the
"[: : integer expression expected" error.

code

How do I avoid the error message? Should I redirect it to /dev/null or should I add another If then only if Actual_Date has a value, proceed for this IF loop for comparison?

Thanks!

-lt is a numeric operator. What format are these dates in? The best format for numerical comparison of dates is always YYYYMMDDHHMMSS . Can you change the dates to this format?

date values are in YYYYMMDD.. there is no timestamp part for the date fields.. how do I add timestamp to date values? if one of the date values can be empty which is a valid scenario in my case, how do I avoid the error message?

OK, nice. It's the format that makes it easy, so the timestamp doesn't matter (you can miss off less significant parts (from both numbers) without breaking a numerical comparison).

A couple of possible options:

if  [[ "${Actual_Date}" -lt "${DATE_OF_RUN_DB}"  ]]

if  [ "${Actual_Date:-0}" -lt "${DATE_OF_RUN_DB:-0}"  ]

thanks Scott, that works

I am on LINUX.

actually, as it is a date value, should n't I use the defaule date - ex 00010101 instead of 0 with which it can't compare another date value..

I mean only the ACTUAL_DATE can or can't have values... the DATE_OF_RUN_DB should have a valida date value.. so if I default ACTUAL_DATE to 0, will it not throw an error?