Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
EXPR(1)			    General Commands Manual		       EXPR(1)

NAME
       expr -- evaluate	expression

SYNOPSIS
       expr expression

DESCRIPTION
       The expr	utility	evaluates expression and writes	the result on standard
       output.

       All  operators and operands must	be passed as separate arguments.  Sev-
       eral of the operators have special meaning to command interpreters  and
       must  therefore	be quoted appropriately.  All integer operands are in-
       terpreted in base 10.

       Arithmetic operations are performed using signed	integer	math.

       Operators are listed below in order of increasing precedence;  all  are
       left-associative.  Operators with equal precedence are grouped within {
       } symbols.

       expr1 | expr2
	       Return the evaluation of	expr1 if it is neither an empty	string
	       nor zero; otherwise, returns the	evaluation of expr2.

       expr1 & expr2
	       Return  the evaluation of expr1 if neither expression evaluates
	       to an empty string or zero; otherwise, returns zero.

       expr1 {=, >, >=,	<, <=, !=} expr2
	       Return the results of integer comparison	if both	arguments  are
	       integers;  otherwise,  returns the results of string comparison
	       using the locale-specific collation sequence.   The  result  of
	       each comparison is 1 if the specified relation is true, or 0 if
	       the relation is false.

       expr1 {+, -} expr2
	       Return the results of addition or subtraction of	integer-valued
	       arguments.

       expr1 {*, /, %} expr2
	       Return  the results of multiplication, integer division,	or re-
	       mainder of integer-valued arguments.

       expr1 : expr2
	       The ":" operator	matches	expr1 against expr2, which must	 be  a
	       regular	expression.  The regular expression is anchored	to the
	       beginning of  the string	with an	implicit "^".

	       If the match succeeds and the pattern  contains	at  least  one
	       regular	expression  subexpression "\(...\)", the string	corre-
	       sponding	to "\1"	is returned; otherwise the  matching  operator
	       returns	the  number of characters matched.  If the match fails
	       and the pattern contains	a regular expression subexpression the
	       null string is returned;	otherwise 0.

       Parentheses are used for	grouping in the	usual manner.

EXAMPLES
       1.   The	following example adds one to the variable a.
		  a=`expr $a + 1`

       2.   The	following example returns the filename portion of  a  pathname
	    stored  in variable	a.  The	// characters act to eliminate ambigu-
	    ity	with the division operator.
		  expr //$a : '.*/\(.*\)'

       3.   The	following example returns the number of	characters in variable
	    a.
		  expr $a : '.*'

DIAGNOSTICS
       The expr	utility	exits with one of the following	values:
       0       the expression is neither an empty string nor 0.
       1       the expression is an empty string or 0.
       2       the expression is invalid.

SEE ALSO
       sh(1), test(1)

STANDARDS
       The expr	utility	conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2").

FreeBSD	4.9			 May 10, 2002			       EXPR(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=expr&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+4.9-RELEASE>

home | help