Often you may want to check if a variable is numeric in PowerShell.
You can use the following syntax to do so:
$my_variable -match "^[\d\.]+$"
This particular example checks if the variable named $my_variable is a numeric value and returns either True or False.
This syntax uses the -match command to check if each character in the variable is either a digit ( \d ) or a decimal place ( \. ) from the beginning ( ^ ) of the string to the end ( $ ) of the string.
The following examples show how to use this syntax in practice.
Example: How to Check if a Variable is Numeric in PowerShell
Suppose we have a variable with the following value:
- 546
We can use the following syntax to check if this variable is numeric:
$my_variable = 546
$my_variable -match "^[\d\.]+$"
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
This returns True since the variable named $my_variable is indeed numeric.
Suppose we have a variable with the following value:
- 546.22
We can use the following syntax to check if this variable is numeric:
$my_variable = 546.22
$my_variable -match "^[\d\.]+$"
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
This returns True since the variable named $my_variable is a number with a decimal point.
Suppose we have a variable with the following value:
- 546.22AA
We can use the following syntax to check if this variable is numeric:
$my_variable = "546.22AA"
$my_variable -match "^[\d\.]+$"
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
This returns False since the variable named $my_variable contains a combination of numbers and letters.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in PowerShell:
PowerShell: How to Replace Text in String
PowerShell: How to Extract Text Between Two Strings
PowerShell: How to Check if String Exists in List of Strings
PowerShell: How to Replace Every Occurrence of String in File
