EXPR(1) General Commands Manual EXPR(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

expr - Print the value of EXPRESSION to standard output

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**expr** \[EXPRESSION]  
**expr** \[OPTIONS]

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

Print the value of EXPRESSION to standard output

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

[**--version**](#version)

output version information and exit

[**--help**](#help)

display this help and exit

\[*expression*]

# [EXTRA](#EXTRA)

A blank line below separates increasing precedence groups.

EXPRESSION may be:

ARG1 | ARG2  
ARG1 if it is neither null nor 0, otherwise ARG2

ARG1 & ARG2  
ARG1 if neither argument is null or 0, otherwise 0

ARG1 < ARG2  
ARG1 is less than ARG2

ARG1 <= ARG2  
ARG1 is less than or equal to ARG2

ARG1 = ARG2  
ARG1 is equal to ARG2

ARG1 != ARG2  
ARG1 is unequal to ARG2

ARG1 >= ARG2  
ARG1 is greater than or equal to ARG2

ARG1 > ARG2  
ARG1 is greater than ARG2

ARG1 + ARG2  
arithmetic sum of ARG1 and ARG2

ARG1 - ARG2  
arithmetic difference of ARG1 and ARG2

ARG1 * ARG2  
arithmetic product of ARG1 and ARG2

ARG1 / ARG2  
arithmetic quotient of ARG1 divided by ARG2

ARG1 % ARG2  
arithmetic remainder of ARG1 divided by ARG2

STRING : REGEXP  
anchored pattern match of REGEXP in STRING

match STRING REGEXP  
same as STRING : REGEXP

substr STRING POS LENGTH  
substring of STRING, POS counted from 1

index STRING CHARS  
index in STRING where any CHARS is found, or 0

length STRING  
length of STRING

\+ TOKEN  
interpret TOKEN as a string, even if it is a keyword like match or an operator like /

( EXPRESSION )  
value of EXPRESSION

Beware that many operators need to be escaped or quoted for shells. Comparisons are arithmetic if both ARGs are numbers, else lexicographical. Pattern matches return the string matched between \\( and \\) or null; if \\( and \\) are not used, they return the number of characters matched or 0.

Exit status is 0 if EXPRESSION is neither null nor 0, 1 if EXPRESSION is null or 0, 2 if EXPRESSION is syntactically invalid, and 3 if an error occurred.

Environment variables:

\- EXPR\_DEBUG\_TOKENS=1: dump expression's tokens  
\- EXPR\_DEBUG\_RPN=1: dump expression represented in reverse polish notation  
\- EXPR\_DEBUG\_SYA\_STEP=1: dump each parser step  
\- EXPR\_DEBUG\_AST=1: dump expression represented abstract syntax tree

Errors are reported with the expression echoed back and a caret under the offending argument whenever stderr is a terminal; anything else reading stderr gets the usual single-line message.

# [VERSION](#VERSION)

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

2026-10-29

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Document: expr(1) from uutils 0.12.0-r5 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/uutils/coreutils