Re: comparing a string to a number?

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Subject: Re: comparing a string to a number?
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 18:55:18 -0400

Hey Matt,

At 06:18 PM 9/16/2003, you wrote:

<xsl:if test="/Output/response/Field < '20'">

This is confusing to me for a few reasons.

1) The '20' is in quotes

Yes: it does no harm, but it doesn't help either: the string will be coerced into a number. (It'll cost you a micro-millisecond unless your processor compiles it away.)

2) the value of the Field node is most often a number, but on some occasions it's a letter/number pair, like 1A or 1B.

Can this check ever work?

It will work in the sense that it won't throw an error, yes. Whether it "works" in the sense of giving you the results you want, depends on what you want.

Would 1A ever be "less" than '20'?

No, and it won't ever be more, either. Converted to a number it becomes NaN, which when compared as a number to 20 always results in false. (Someone please jump in if I'm wrong: these rules are defined in IEEE 754.)

Good question.

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Current Thread
comparing a string to a number? Keller, Matt - Tue, 16 Sep 2003 18:20:11 -0400 (EDT) Wendell Piez - Tue, 16 Sep 2003 19:00:21 -0400 (EDT) <= <Possible follow-ups> cknell - Wed, 17 Sep 2003 09:16:13 -0400 (EDT) Niko Matsakis - Wed, 17 Sep 2003 09:39:31 -0400 (EDT) G. Ken Holman - Wed, 17 Sep 2003 09:40:20 -0400 (EDT) David Carlisle - Wed, 17 Sep 2003 09:51:08 -0400 (EDT)

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