in reply to Not a Number

This question seems to come round with the fall of the leaf. When I asked it last year I didn't realise that it was so interesting and complex. Now I know, though I admit part of me just wants to say, like Sir Roger de Coverley would if he'd had a Babbage Engine, "well come on, I mean to say dash it all, a thing's either a number or it's not, don't you know?"

§ George Sherston

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Re: Re: Not a Number
by broquaint (Abbot) on Oct 18, 2002 at 11:17 UTC
    It may be a little late now but here's a funky little subroutine from merlyn that distinguishes between numbers and strings 
    sub is_numeric {
  ($_[0] & ~ $_[0]) eq "0";
}

    [download]
    The original post can be found here.
    HTH

    _________
    broquaint

[reply]
[d/l]
      OK, what will your subroutine return for '1e+2'?..
      perltod() works fine.
[reply]

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