[plug] problem found in "if" statement

[Bernd Felsche]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 09:13:12AM +0800, Jon  Miller wrote:
> I've found a problem in an "if" statement and cannot find a fix.  The statement is
> if [ "$vMLSTAT" >= 0 ]; then
>   .....

That looks like a syntax error to me; but I don't know which shell
you're using.

>   .....
> 
> fi

Try "-ge" instead of ">="

>  I'm getting a unary operator expected.  I've tried also the
>  following and got a error message stating that [ : : integer
>  expression expected

> if [ "$vMLSTAT" -lt 0 ]; then
>    ......
>    ......
> fi

That can happen if the variable isn't set to anything.
A "hack" around that problem is to prefix the "number" with a
literal zero e.g.

	if [ 0"$vMLSTAT" -lt 0 ]; then

which works for positive numbers only!

Korn (and Bash, IIUC) shells allow type definitions for variables.

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