Since Perl will autostringify as needed, just check to see if $value looks like a number or not. I'd probably do something radically sub-optimal like

     $value = lookupString($value) if($value !~ /^\d+$/);

[download]

I'm sure one of the monks who has Perl skills above mine (i.e. almost everybody) has a better way, but I think my fragment will avoid too many errors (I'd probably demonstrate paranoia by checking to see if $value is defined before the match)

added in update As chromatic pointed out, the regex I showed only checks for positive integers, with neither signs nor blank padding. Since the OP's posted code includes int($value), I'm concluding values including a decimal point or in exponential notation aren't a concern. The regex should probably look more like this: 
$value =~ /^\s*[+-]?\s*\d+\s*$/

[download]
which should deal with signed and unsigned integers, but will reject cases where $value includes a radix point or is in exponential notation.

emc

" The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. " — Nathaniel S. Borenstein

In reply to Re: need idiom - compare a number to a string by swampyankee
in thread need idiom - compare a number to a string by nmerriweather

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