match() prevents numeric strings from beeing treated numerically

[Dirk Zimoch]

In gawk version 3.1.5, numeric user input that is parsed with match() is not 
recognized as "numeric string" any more. I.e. mixed string-numeric comparison 
does not work any more. In version 3.1.1, it worked. (Even though the 
documentation never explicitly mentioned this behavior for match(), as it does 
for split(). But is says that "user input" should be treated that way.)

awk 'BEGIN{match(".5",/.*/,a);print a[0]==.5?"OK":"FAULT"}'

Version 3.1.1 prints OK, version 3.1.5 prints FAULT.

awk '{match($0,/.*/,a);print a[0]==a[0]+0?"OK":"FAULT"}' << EOF
5
5.0
0.5
.5
EOF

Version 3.1.1 prints
OK
OK
OK
OK

Version 3.1.5 prints
OK
FAULT
OK
FAULT


--
Dr. Dirk Zimoch
Paul Scherrer Institut, WBGB/006
5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Phone +41 56 310 5182