Question

In PowerShell, how can I test if a variable holds a numeric value?

Currently, I’m trying to do it like this, but it always seems to return false.

add-type -Language CSharpVersion3 @'
    public class Helpers {
        public static bool IsNumeric(object o) {
            return o is byte  || o is short  || o is int  || o is long
                || o is sbyte || o is ushort || o is uint || o is ulong
                || o is float || o is double || o is decimal
                ;
        }
    }
'@

filter isNumeric($InputObject) {
    [Helpers]::IsNumeric($InputObject)
}

PS> 1 | isNumeric
False

Answer 1

Modify your filter like this:

filter isNumeric {
    [Helpers]::IsNumeric($_)
}

function uses the $input variable to contain pipeline information whereas the filter uses the special variable $_ that contains the current pipeline object.

Edit:

For a powershell syntax way you can use just a filter (w/o add-type):

filter isNumeric($x) {
    return $x -is [byte]  -or $x -is [int16]  -or $x -is [int32]  -or $x -is [int64]  `
       -or $x -is [sbyte] -or $x -is [uint16] -or $x -is [uint32] -or $x -is [uint64] `
       -or $x -is [float] -or $x -is [double] -or $x -is [decimal]
}