When I run commands in my shell as below, it returns an expr: non-integer argument
error. Can someone please explain this to me?
$ x=20
$ y=5
$ expr x / y
expr: non-integer argument
Those variables are shell variables. To expand them as parameters to another program (ie expr
), you need to use the $
prefix:
expr $x / $y
The reason it complained is because it thought you were trying to operate on alphabetic characters (ie non-integer)
If you are using the Bash shell, you can achieve the same result using expression syntax:
echo $((x / y))
Or:
z=$((x / y))
echo $z