Bourne shell if statemenet question
 

I am trying to compare to IP addresses, but the ifstatement is bombing on the "." in the ip address. Do you know anyway I can get the ifstatement to not mess up on the "."'s in the ip address. Thanks for they help.

IPA="192.158.0.100"
IPB="192.168.78.2"
if [ "$IPA" -eq "$IPB" ]; then

"-eq" tries to compare them as numbers. So it will accept only one "." at best.

If you compare them as strings, using a "=" (or "==" (a bash thing I believe)) instead of "-eq" it will work.

Yes it's logical! To compare strings use the = not the string equivalent (-eq), and to compare numbers use -eq, which is the string equivalent of the =. :scratch:

Excuse me but;
1 = 1
"one" -eq "one"
Seems more logical. :confused:

Yes but -eq is part of a family of operators

-lt, -gt, -ne, -le, -ge

which all take integers as their operands,
whereas there is only one string comparison operator "=".

man test

for all the gory details.