CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshell
Deepak
Deepak

Reputation: 414

Error expr: non-numeric argument while executing bash script

There is txt file-:

file1-
abhinav,Age_10,11,12,13,14,15
deepak,Age_10,11,12,13,14,15
file2-:
Dixit,15
Skoda,15

Shell script-:

old_count=`grep 'abhinav' |  awk  'BEGIN { FS = "," } ; { print $2 }' | awk  'BEGIN { FS = "_" } ; { print $2 }'`
new_count=`grep 'dixit' | awk  'BEGIN { FS = "," } ; { print $2 }'`
sum=`expr $old_count + $new_count`

But when this script is executed than error expr: non-numeric argument is coming . Though both variable $old_count $new_count are numeric.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4601

Answers (1)

chepner
chepner

Reputation: 532053

Sidestepping whatever the problem actually is, it's simpler to write this as

old_count=$( awk -F, '/abhinav/ {split($2, a, "_"); print a[2]}' file1 )
new_count=$( awk -F, '/Dixit/ {print $2}' file2 )
sum=$(( old_count + new_count ))

One issue might have been that you were grepping for dixit, not Dixit, resulting in an empty value for new_count. I get a different error, but that could be based on the implementation of expr. Note that expr is no longer necessary for arithmetic in the shell; $((...)) should be available in any POSIX-compliant shell.

Upvotes: 1

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