Suppose you have some (user) value in a numeric variable with leading zeros. For example, you number something with zero-padded numbers consisting of 3 digits: 001, 002, 003, and so on. This label is assigned to a Bash variable, named $N.

Until the numbers are below 008, and until you use the variable only in text interpolations, you’re safe. For example, the following works just fine:

N=016
echo "Value: $N"
# result is "016"

However… 🙂
If you start using this variable as a numeric variable in arithmetics, then you’re in trouble. Here is an example:

N=016
echo $((N + 2))
# result is 16, not 18, as expected!
printf %d "$N"
# result is 14, not 16, as expected!

You probably already see the pattern – “016” is not treated as a decimal number, but as an octal one. Because of the leading zero. This is explained in the man page of bash, section “ARITHMETIC EVALUATION” (aka. “Shell Arithmetic”).

In order to force decimal representation and as a side effect also remove any leading zeros for a Bash variable, you need to treat it as follows:

N=016
N=$((10#$N)) # force decimal (base 10)
echo $((N + 2))
# result is 18, ok
printf %d "$N"
# result is 16, ok

Note also that there’s another caveat – forcing the number to decimal base 10 doesn’t actually validate that it contains only [0-9] characters. Read the very last paragraph of the man page of bash, section “ARITHMETIC EVALUATION” (aka. “Shell Arithmetic”), for more details on how digits can be represented by letters and symbols. My tests however show that you can’t operate with invalid numbers in base 10, though I’m no expert here. In order to be on the safe side, I would suggest that you validate your numbers with a strict regular expression, just in case, and if you don’t trust the data input.

Resources:

• Remove Leading 0’s in Bash « Mike Zupan’s Random Blog

Author: Ivan Zahariev

An experienced Linux & IT enthusiast, Engineer by heart, Systems architect & developer.