non-numeric argument from output
 

Hello:

I'm using the following:
Fedora 6 2.6.18.1
bash

I'm extracting a numeric value from a file into a variable. I fail to then perform expr on the the var due to 'non-numeric argument'

Below I am pasting the output from my screen:
# grep octets my.out|awk '{print $4}'
20850897
# myvar=`grep octets my.out|awk '{print $4}'`
# echo $myvar
20850897
# expr $myvar + 1
expr: non-numeric argument
# myvar=20850897
# echo $myvar
20850897
# expr $myvar + 1
20850898

The my.out file contains output from an expect script. I can only assume this file has some hidden characters that render my variables 'non-numeric'.

I have tried sending the output first into another file to rid it of hidden characters, but still it fails.

You can see below that the file containing the output will allways be 1 char larger than a 'clean' file. I can't explain this.

# grep octets my.out|awk '{print $4}'
20850897
# grep octets my.out|awk '{print $4}' > my.out2
# cat my.out2
20850897
# echo 20850897 > my.out3
# cat my.out3
20850897
# ll my.out*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10 May 2 16:02 my.out2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 May 2 16:02 my.out3

Thanks for any help,
Dan

Try this?

Thanks so much. That solved the problem.