Re: how to check if a string variable contains a number or string?

[Jeffrey Carter <jrcarter@acm.org>]

Sarah Thomas wrote:
> I have an array of strings that I read in from a file. I want to check
> if each element in the array is a string or if it is a number. is
> there any predefined functions that would help do that? thanks

Since you have an array of strings, obviously each element of the array 
is a string. Presumably you mean you want to check if a string contains 
the image of a number or not. In that case, what do you mean by a 
number? An integer value, or a real value? Are embedded underscores 
acceptable? How about an exponent? Based numbers? Does 
"2#0101_1010.0011#E5" represent the image of a number?

Once you've answered these questions you can decide if 'Value or 
something from Ada.Text_IO is acceptable, or if you're going to have to 
write code to parse the string manually.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"Brave Sir Robin ran away."
Monty Python and the Holy Grail