Make awk produce error on non-numeric
I have a program that sums a column in a file:
awk -v col=2 '{sum+=$col}END{print sum}' input-file
However, it has a problem: If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data, (or if one number is missing) it will interpret it as zero.
I want it to produce an error if one of the fields cannot be parsed as a number.
Here's an example input:
bob 1
dave 2
alice 3.5
foo bar
I want it to produce an error because 'bar' is not a number, rather than ignoring the error.
awk numeric-data
add a comment |
I have a program that sums a column in a file:
awk -v col=2 '{sum+=$col}END{print sum}' input-file
However, it has a problem: If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data, (or if one number is missing) it will interpret it as zero.
I want it to produce an error if one of the fields cannot be parsed as a number.
Here's an example input:
bob 1
dave 2
alice 3.5
foo bar
I want it to produce an error because 'bar' is not a number, rather than ignoring the error.
awk numeric-data
2
If not a dupe, at least strongly related: Can I determine type of an awk variable?
– Kusalananda
Jan 16 at 17:30
by "produce an error", do you mean stop altogether, or skip the line, and/or emit a message?
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 16 at 17:39
Stop altogether and emit a message.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:41
@Kusalananda Thanks, that was really helpful.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:54
add a comment |
I have a program that sums a column in a file:
awk -v col=2 '{sum+=$col}END{print sum}' input-file
However, it has a problem: If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data, (or if one number is missing) it will interpret it as zero.
I want it to produce an error if one of the fields cannot be parsed as a number.
Here's an example input:
bob 1
dave 2
alice 3.5
foo bar
I want it to produce an error because 'bar' is not a number, rather than ignoring the error.
awk numeric-data
I have a program that sums a column in a file:
awk -v col=2 '{sum+=$col}END{print sum}' input-file
However, it has a problem: If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data, (or if one number is missing) it will interpret it as zero.
I want it to produce an error if one of the fields cannot be parsed as a number.
Here's an example input:
bob 1
dave 2
alice 3.5
foo bar
I want it to produce an error because 'bar' is not a number, rather than ignoring the error.
awk numeric-data
awk numeric-data
asked Jan 16 at 17:18
Nick ODellNick ODell
1,0912920
1,0912920
2
If not a dupe, at least strongly related: Can I determine type of an awk variable?
– Kusalananda
Jan 16 at 17:30
by "produce an error", do you mean stop altogether, or skip the line, and/or emit a message?
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 16 at 17:39
Stop altogether and emit a message.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:41
@Kusalananda Thanks, that was really helpful.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:54
add a comment |
2
If not a dupe, at least strongly related: Can I determine type of an awk variable?
– Kusalananda
Jan 16 at 17:30
by "produce an error", do you mean stop altogether, or skip the line, and/or emit a message?
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 16 at 17:39
Stop altogether and emit a message.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:41
@Kusalananda Thanks, that was really helpful.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:54
2
2
If not a dupe, at least strongly related: Can I determine type of an awk variable?
– Kusalananda
Jan 16 at 17:30
If not a dupe, at least strongly related: Can I determine type of an awk variable?
– Kusalananda
Jan 16 at 17:30
by "produce an error", do you mean stop altogether, or skip the line, and/or emit a message?
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 16 at 17:39
by "produce an error", do you mean stop altogether, or skip the line, and/or emit a message?
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 16 at 17:39
Stop altogether and emit a message.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:41
Stop altogether and emit a message.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:41
@Kusalananda Thanks, that was really helpful.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:54
@Kusalananda Thanks, that was really helpful.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:54
add a comment |
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
A reasonable way to test would be to compare the field using tests similar to strtod
, which is the method that awk uses to convert strings to numbers:
$2 !~ / *[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
The above differs from strtod in that it does not consider INFINITY or NAN to be "numbers". The leading space requirement could be relaxed under awk's default field-splitting behavior -- meaning the fields would never contain leading space:
$2 !~ /[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
A further refinement, thanks to Stéphane's comment and answer here:
$2 !~ /^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
Broken out for slightly better legibility, that regex is:
/^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|
0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/
... where the intention is to allow a possible leading + or -, then either a floating point number or hexadecimal number. The floating point number has optional leading digits, an option separator (here fixed to be a period .
), followed by some number of digits, optionally followed by an exponent. The hex number must start with 0x
or 0X
, followed by hex digits, a separator, more hex digits, and optionally followed by a "power" (exponent). The entire second field must match one of those formats (as anchored by ^
and $
). Omitted here, for the purposes of this question, are the NAN and INFINITY options.
Another option would be to force a numeric conversion, then compare it to zero and then further compare the original input to something that would convert to zero; more specifically, does it start with an optional + or -, then is it followed by zeros, or followed by a period and zeros:
{ number=0 + $2;
if (!number && $2 !~ /^[+-]?(0+)|.0+/)
print "NAN: "$2;
}
1
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like.123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like.
,+
,+.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to0
bystrtod
(what about0e13
,.0e-0
,0x0
,0x.0p+13
, etc?)
– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
add a comment |
I ended up with this:
awk -v col=$col '
typeof($col) != "strnum" {
print "Error on line " NR ": " $col " is not numeric"
noprint=1
exit 1
}
{
sum+=$col
}
END {
if(!noprint)
print sum
}' $file
This uses typeof, which is a GNU awk extension. typeof($col)
returns 'strnum' if $col
is a valid number, and 'string' or 'unassigned' if it is not.
See Can I determine type of an awk variable?
add a comment |
awk -v col=2 '
$col+0==0 && $col!~/^[+-]?0/ { print "bad number " $col > "/dev/stderr" }
{sum+=$col}
END{print sum}' input-file
It's up to you to complicate it if you want it to also handle .0
or .0e+33
as valid representations of 0
; notice that awk
will ignore trailing junk when converting strings to numbers ("1.4e1e3"+0
, "1.4e1.e7"+0
or "14+13"+0
will be all equal to 14).
add a comment |
If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data,
$col ~ /[^-.[:digit:]]/ {print "Error, non-numeric :"; print $col; exit 1};
Explanation just use a RegEx to check for the presence of characters which are not digits nor floating point, sign, etc.
(or if one number is missing)
add
|| ($col == "")
or
|| (length($col) == 0)
to the rule.
Or you could use a comparison to NF
if it's the last column like in your example.
add a comment |
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4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
A reasonable way to test would be to compare the field using tests similar to strtod
, which is the method that awk uses to convert strings to numbers:
$2 !~ / *[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
The above differs from strtod in that it does not consider INFINITY or NAN to be "numbers". The leading space requirement could be relaxed under awk's default field-splitting behavior -- meaning the fields would never contain leading space:
$2 !~ /[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
A further refinement, thanks to Stéphane's comment and answer here:
$2 !~ /^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
Broken out for slightly better legibility, that regex is:
/^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|
0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/
... where the intention is to allow a possible leading + or -, then either a floating point number or hexadecimal number. The floating point number has optional leading digits, an option separator (here fixed to be a period .
), followed by some number of digits, optionally followed by an exponent. The hex number must start with 0x
or 0X
, followed by hex digits, a separator, more hex digits, and optionally followed by a "power" (exponent). The entire second field must match one of those formats (as anchored by ^
and $
). Omitted here, for the purposes of this question, are the NAN and INFINITY options.
Another option would be to force a numeric conversion, then compare it to zero and then further compare the original input to something that would convert to zero; more specifically, does it start with an optional + or -, then is it followed by zeros, or followed by a period and zeros:
{ number=0 + $2;
if (!number && $2 !~ /^[+-]?(0+)|.0+/)
print "NAN: "$2;
}
1
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like.123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like.
,+
,+.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to0
bystrtod
(what about0e13
,.0e-0
,0x0
,0x.0p+13
, etc?)
– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
add a comment |
A reasonable way to test would be to compare the field using tests similar to strtod
, which is the method that awk uses to convert strings to numbers:
$2 !~ / *[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
The above differs from strtod in that it does not consider INFINITY or NAN to be "numbers". The leading space requirement could be relaxed under awk's default field-splitting behavior -- meaning the fields would never contain leading space:
$2 !~ /[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
A further refinement, thanks to Stéphane's comment and answer here:
$2 !~ /^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
Broken out for slightly better legibility, that regex is:
/^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|
0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/
... where the intention is to allow a possible leading + or -, then either a floating point number or hexadecimal number. The floating point number has optional leading digits, an option separator (here fixed to be a period .
), followed by some number of digits, optionally followed by an exponent. The hex number must start with 0x
or 0X
, followed by hex digits, a separator, more hex digits, and optionally followed by a "power" (exponent). The entire second field must match one of those formats (as anchored by ^
and $
). Omitted here, for the purposes of this question, are the NAN and INFINITY options.
Another option would be to force a numeric conversion, then compare it to zero and then further compare the original input to something that would convert to zero; more specifically, does it start with an optional + or -, then is it followed by zeros, or followed by a period and zeros:
{ number=0 + $2;
if (!number && $2 !~ /^[+-]?(0+)|.0+/)
print "NAN: "$2;
}
1
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like.123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like.
,+
,+.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to0
bystrtod
(what about0e13
,.0e-0
,0x0
,0x.0p+13
, etc?)
– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
add a comment |
A reasonable way to test would be to compare the field using tests similar to strtod
, which is the method that awk uses to convert strings to numbers:
$2 !~ / *[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
The above differs from strtod in that it does not consider INFINITY or NAN to be "numbers". The leading space requirement could be relaxed under awk's default field-splitting behavior -- meaning the fields would never contain leading space:
$2 !~ /[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
A further refinement, thanks to Stéphane's comment and answer here:
$2 !~ /^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
Broken out for slightly better legibility, that regex is:
/^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|
0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/
... where the intention is to allow a possible leading + or -, then either a floating point number or hexadecimal number. The floating point number has optional leading digits, an option separator (here fixed to be a period .
), followed by some number of digits, optionally followed by an exponent. The hex number must start with 0x
or 0X
, followed by hex digits, a separator, more hex digits, and optionally followed by a "power" (exponent). The entire second field must match one of those formats (as anchored by ^
and $
). Omitted here, for the purposes of this question, are the NAN and INFINITY options.
Another option would be to force a numeric conversion, then compare it to zero and then further compare the original input to something that would convert to zero; more specifically, does it start with an optional + or -, then is it followed by zeros, or followed by a period and zeros:
{ number=0 + $2;
if (!number && $2 !~ /^[+-]?(0+)|.0+/)
print "NAN: "$2;
}
A reasonable way to test would be to compare the field using tests similar to strtod
, which is the method that awk uses to convert strings to numbers:
$2 !~ / *[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
The above differs from strtod in that it does not consider INFINITY or NAN to be "numbers". The leading space requirement could be relaxed under awk's default field-splitting behavior -- meaning the fields would never contain leading space:
$2 !~ /[+-]?[[:digit:]]/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
A further refinement, thanks to Stéphane's comment and answer here:
$2 !~ /^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/ { print "NAN: " $2; exit 1; }
Broken out for slightly better legibility, that regex is:
/^[+-]?([[:digit:]]*.?[[:digit:]]*([eE][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?|
0[xX][[:xdigit:]]*.?[[:xdigit:]]*([pP][-+]?[[:digit:]]+)?)$/
... where the intention is to allow a possible leading + or -, then either a floating point number or hexadecimal number. The floating point number has optional leading digits, an option separator (here fixed to be a period .
), followed by some number of digits, optionally followed by an exponent. The hex number must start with 0x
or 0X
, followed by hex digits, a separator, more hex digits, and optionally followed by a "power" (exponent). The entire second field must match one of those formats (as anchored by ^
and $
). Omitted here, for the purposes of this question, are the NAN and INFINITY options.
Another option would be to force a numeric conversion, then compare it to zero and then further compare the original input to something that would convert to zero; more specifically, does it start with an optional + or -, then is it followed by zeros, or followed by a period and zeros:
{ number=0 + $2;
if (!number && $2 !~ /^[+-]?(0+)|.0+/)
print "NAN: "$2;
}
edited Jan 17 at 2:15
answered Jan 16 at 17:46
Jeff SchallerJeff Schaller
42k1156133
42k1156133
1
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like.123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like.
,+
,+.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to0
bystrtod
(what about0e13
,.0e-0
,0x0
,0x.0p+13
, etc?)
– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
add a comment |
1
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like.123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like.
,+
,+.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to0
bystrtod
(what about0e13
,.0e-0
,0x0
,0x.0p+13
, etc?)
– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
1
1
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with
^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like .123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like .
, +
, +.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
You'd need to anchor the regexp (with
^
), otherwise, it's just a test whether the second field contains a decimal digit. You'd also need to take care of numbers like .123
. There's also whether you want to honour user's decimal radix (comma vs period). The last one would let strings like .
, +
, +.
– Stéphane Chazelas
Jan 16 at 21:49
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
Great points, Stéphane; thank you. I will correct the simpler aspects shortly.
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 0:43
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and
/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to 0
by strtod
(what about 0e13
, .0e-0
, 0x0
, 0x.0p+13
, etc?)– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
notice that when converting strings to numbers awk will ignore any trailing junk (see my answer) and
/^[+-]?0*.?0*$/
is far from being a thorough pattern matching strings that will be completely parsed to 0
by strtod
(what about 0e13
, .0e-0
, 0x0
, 0x.0p+13
, etc?)– Uncle Billy
Jan 17 at 1:58
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
Point well taken, @UncleBilly, as also noted by Stéphane above. I'm working on the "zero" regex right now...
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 17 at 2:00
add a comment |
I ended up with this:
awk -v col=$col '
typeof($col) != "strnum" {
print "Error on line " NR ": " $col " is not numeric"
noprint=1
exit 1
}
{
sum+=$col
}
END {
if(!noprint)
print sum
}' $file
This uses typeof, which is a GNU awk extension. typeof($col)
returns 'strnum' if $col
is a valid number, and 'string' or 'unassigned' if it is not.
See Can I determine type of an awk variable?
add a comment |
I ended up with this:
awk -v col=$col '
typeof($col) != "strnum" {
print "Error on line " NR ": " $col " is not numeric"
noprint=1
exit 1
}
{
sum+=$col
}
END {
if(!noprint)
print sum
}' $file
This uses typeof, which is a GNU awk extension. typeof($col)
returns 'strnum' if $col
is a valid number, and 'string' or 'unassigned' if it is not.
See Can I determine type of an awk variable?
add a comment |
I ended up with this:
awk -v col=$col '
typeof($col) != "strnum" {
print "Error on line " NR ": " $col " is not numeric"
noprint=1
exit 1
}
{
sum+=$col
}
END {
if(!noprint)
print sum
}' $file
This uses typeof, which is a GNU awk extension. typeof($col)
returns 'strnum' if $col
is a valid number, and 'string' or 'unassigned' if it is not.
See Can I determine type of an awk variable?
I ended up with this:
awk -v col=$col '
typeof($col) != "strnum" {
print "Error on line " NR ": " $col " is not numeric"
noprint=1
exit 1
}
{
sum+=$col
}
END {
if(!noprint)
print sum
}' $file
This uses typeof, which is a GNU awk extension. typeof($col)
returns 'strnum' if $col
is a valid number, and 'string' or 'unassigned' if it is not.
See Can I determine type of an awk variable?
answered Jan 16 at 17:51
Nick ODellNick ODell
1,0912920
1,0912920
add a comment |
add a comment |
awk -v col=2 '
$col+0==0 && $col!~/^[+-]?0/ { print "bad number " $col > "/dev/stderr" }
{sum+=$col}
END{print sum}' input-file
It's up to you to complicate it if you want it to also handle .0
or .0e+33
as valid representations of 0
; notice that awk
will ignore trailing junk when converting strings to numbers ("1.4e1e3"+0
, "1.4e1.e7"+0
or "14+13"+0
will be all equal to 14).
add a comment |
awk -v col=2 '
$col+0==0 && $col!~/^[+-]?0/ { print "bad number " $col > "/dev/stderr" }
{sum+=$col}
END{print sum}' input-file
It's up to you to complicate it if you want it to also handle .0
or .0e+33
as valid representations of 0
; notice that awk
will ignore trailing junk when converting strings to numbers ("1.4e1e3"+0
, "1.4e1.e7"+0
or "14+13"+0
will be all equal to 14).
add a comment |
awk -v col=2 '
$col+0==0 && $col!~/^[+-]?0/ { print "bad number " $col > "/dev/stderr" }
{sum+=$col}
END{print sum}' input-file
It's up to you to complicate it if you want it to also handle .0
or .0e+33
as valid representations of 0
; notice that awk
will ignore trailing junk when converting strings to numbers ("1.4e1e3"+0
, "1.4e1.e7"+0
or "14+13"+0
will be all equal to 14).
awk -v col=2 '
$col+0==0 && $col!~/^[+-]?0/ { print "bad number " $col > "/dev/stderr" }
{sum+=$col}
END{print sum}' input-file
It's up to you to complicate it if you want it to also handle .0
or .0e+33
as valid representations of 0
; notice that awk
will ignore trailing junk when converting strings to numbers ("1.4e1e3"+0
, "1.4e1.e7"+0
or "14+13"+0
will be all equal to 14).
answered Jan 17 at 1:53
Uncle BillyUncle Billy
5925
5925
add a comment |
add a comment |
If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data,
$col ~ /[^-.[:digit:]]/ {print "Error, non-numeric :"; print $col; exit 1};
Explanation just use a RegEx to check for the presence of characters which are not digits nor floating point, sign, etc.
(or if one number is missing)
add
|| ($col == "")
or
|| (length($col) == 0)
to the rule.
Or you could use a comparison to NF
if it's the last column like in your example.
add a comment |
If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data,
$col ~ /[^-.[:digit:]]/ {print "Error, non-numeric :"; print $col; exit 1};
Explanation just use a RegEx to check for the presence of characters which are not digits nor floating point, sign, etc.
(or if one number is missing)
add
|| ($col == "")
or
|| (length($col) == 0)
to the rule.
Or you could use a comparison to NF
if it's the last column like in your example.
add a comment |
If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data,
$col ~ /[^-.[:digit:]]/ {print "Error, non-numeric :"; print $col; exit 1};
Explanation just use a RegEx to check for the presence of characters which are not digits nor floating point, sign, etc.
(or if one number is missing)
add
|| ($col == "")
or
|| (length($col) == 0)
to the rule.
Or you could use a comparison to NF
if it's the last column like in your example.
If you give it a file that doesn't have numeric data,
$col ~ /[^-.[:digit:]]/ {print "Error, non-numeric :"; print $col; exit 1};
Explanation just use a RegEx to check for the presence of characters which are not digits nor floating point, sign, etc.
(or if one number is missing)
add
|| ($col == "")
or
|| (length($col) == 0)
to the rule.
Or you could use a comparison to NF
if it's the last column like in your example.
answered Jan 16 at 17:41
DrYakDrYak
1915
1915
add a comment |
add a comment |
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2
If not a dupe, at least strongly related: Can I determine type of an awk variable?
– Kusalananda
Jan 16 at 17:30
by "produce an error", do you mean stop altogether, or skip the line, and/or emit a message?
– Jeff Schaller
Jan 16 at 17:39
Stop altogether and emit a message.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:41
@Kusalananda Thanks, that was really helpful.
– Nick ODell
Jan 16 at 17:54