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making sure my string is [a-z] only

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# 8  
Old 04-24-2009
Thanks radoulov for taking the time to respond to my post ... but do I really have to start changing locales etc just to perform a simple pattern match ??.... I would honestly prefer not to do it this way. Thanks for your help though.
# 9  
Old 04-24-2009
That's why I said to set the LANG variable only for the duration of the script or even only for the specific command (just like I did).

If you don't want to mess with the locale, you need to use a tool that recognizes the POSIX character classes (i.e. you'll need [:lower:]).

Which shell you are using (post the exact version, if possible)?
# 10  
Old 04-24-2009
am heading my script with

Code:
#!/bin/bash

im running Solaris 10

and the bash version is

Code:
$ /bin/bash -version
GNU bash, version 3.00.16(1)-release (i386-pc-solaris2.10)
Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

So unless I have a specific tool for POSIX, I cant use regex for pattern matching things like this ? would you be able to point me at an example of one of these tools

thank you again for your help on this
# 11  
Old 04-24-2009
oh by the way , can i just set "LANG=c" within my script ?

i tried looking at currently set system variables by typing "env" at the command line and "LANG" isnt in there ?

sorry for all the questions Smilie
# 12  
Old 04-24-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by hcclnoodles
am heading my script with

Code:
#!/bin/bash

im running Solaris 10

and the bash version is
[...]
I believe that that version of bash supports POSIX character classes:

Code:
[[ $var == *[^[:lower:]]* || ! $var ]]&&echo invalid||echo ok

Last edited by radoulov; 04-24-2009 at 07:51 AM.. Reason: refactored
# 13  
Old 04-24-2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by hcclnoodles
oh by the way , can i just set "LANG=c" within my script ?
Yes.

Quote:
i tried looking at currently set system variables by typing "env" at the command line and "LANG" isnt in there ?
If I recall correctly if it isn't set explicitly a default value is assumed.
# 14  
Old 04-24-2009
I adjusted the code slightly to an 'if' statement, but unfortunately it still returns true if any capital letter is issued (anywhere in the string)... it will fail if a numneric is added however

Code:
if [[ $VAR ==*[^[:lower:]]* || $VAR == "" ]] ; then
echo invalid
else
echo ok
fi

so it looks like my bash supports POSIX but is still giving me problems
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