How to convert string to integer in UNIX

The standard solution:

 expr $d1 - $d2

You can also do:

echo $(( d1 - d2 ))

but beware that this will treat 07 as an octal number! (so 07 is the same as 7, but 010 is different than 10).

Any of these will work from the shell command line. bc is probably your most straight forward solution though.

Using bc:

$ echo "$d1 - $d2" | bc

Using awk:

$ echo $d1 $d2 | awk '{print $1 - $2}'

Using perl:

$ perl -E "say $d1 - $d2"

Using Python:

$ python -c "print $d1 - $d2"

all return

4

An answer that is not limited to the OP's case

The title of the question leads people here, so I decided to answer that question for everyone else since the OP's described case was so limited.

TL;DR

I finally settled on writing a function.

1. If you want 0 in case of non-int:

int(){ printf '%d' ${1:-} 2>/dev/null || :; }

2. If you want [empty_string] in case of non-int:

int(){ expr 0 + ${1:-} 2>/dev/null||:; }

3. If you want find the first int or [empty_string]:

int(){ expr ${1:-} : '[^0-9]*\([0-9]*\)' 2>/dev/null||:; }

4. If you want find the first int or 0:

# This is a combination of numbers 1 and 2
int(){ expr ${1:-} : '[^0-9]*\([0-9]*\)' 2>/dev/null||:; }

If you want to get a non-zero status code on non-int, remove the ||: (aka or true) but leave the ;

Tests

# Wrapped in parens to call a subprocess and not `set` options in the main bash process
# In other words, you can literally copy-paste this code block into your shell to test
( set -eu;
    tests=( 4 "5" "6foo" "bar7" "foo8.9bar" "baz" " " "" )
    test(){ echo; type int; for test in "${tests[@]}"; do echo "got '$(int $test)' from '$test'"; done; echo "got '$(int)' with no argument"; }

    int(){ printf '%d' ${1:-} 2>/dev/null||:; };
    test

    int(){ expr 0 + ${1:-} 2>/dev/null||:; }
    test

    int(){ expr ${1:-} : '[^0-9]*\([0-9]*\)' 2>/dev/null||:; }
    test

    int(){ printf '%d' $(expr ${1:-} : '[^0-9]*\([0-9]*\)' 2>/dev/null)||:; }
    test

    # unexpected inconsistent results from `bc`
    int(){ bc<<<"${1:-}" 2>/dev/null||:; }
    test
)

Test output

int is a function
int ()
{
    printf '%d' ${1:-} 2> /dev/null || :
}
got '4' from '4'
got '5' from '5'
got '0' from '6foo'
got '0' from 'bar7'
got '0' from 'foo8.9bar'
got '0' from 'baz'
got '0' from ' '
got '0' from ''
got '0' with no argument

int is a function
int ()
{
    expr 0 + ${1:-} 2> /dev/null || :
}
got '4' from '4'
got '5' from '5'
got '' from '6foo'
got '' from 'bar7'
got '' from 'foo8.9bar'
got '' from 'baz'
got '' from ' '
got '' from ''
got '' with no argument

int is a function
int ()
{
    expr ${1:-} : '[^0-9]*\([0-9]*\)' 2> /dev/null || :
}
got '4' from '4'
got '5' from '5'
got '6' from '6foo'
got '7' from 'bar7'
got '8' from 'foo8.9bar'
got '' from 'baz'
got '' from ' '
got '' from ''
got '' with no argument

int is a function
int ()
{
    printf '%d' $(expr ${1:-} : '[^0-9]*\([0-9]*\)' 2>/dev/null) || :
}
got '4' from '4'
got '5' from '5'
got '6' from '6foo'
got '7' from 'bar7'
got '8' from 'foo8.9bar'
got '0' from 'baz'
got '0' from ' '
got '0' from ''
got '0' with no argument

int is a function
int ()
{
    bc <<< "${1:-}" 2> /dev/null || :
}
got '4' from '4'
got '5' from '5'
got '' from '6foo'
got '0' from 'bar7'
got '' from 'foo8.9bar'
got '0' from 'baz'
got '' from ' '
got '' from ''
got '' with no argument

Note

I got sent down this rabbit hole because the accepted answer is not compatible with set -o nounset (aka set -u)

# This works
$ ( number="3"; string="foo"; echo $((number)) $((string)); )
3 0

# This doesn't
$ ( set -u; number="3"; string="foo"; echo $((number)) $((string)); )
-bash: foo: unbound variable