Find maximum positive integer value in Bourne Shell

Question

I\'m checking a counter in a loop to determine if it\'s larger than some maximum, if specified in an optional parameter. Since it\'s optional, I can either default the maxi

Answer 1

The Bourne shell has no facilities for storing or manipulating numbers - everything is stored as a string. If you are asking about this kind of thing:

if [ $x -gt $y ]

then that is handled by a separate (in the Bourne shell) executable called test, which has a symbolic link called '['. So your question is really about the limits of the test command, which all the docs I can find seem quite reticent about.