From: Randy Kramer <rhkramer@...>
Date: 2007-10-26T01:43:29+09:00
Subject: Change a string to an integer, report an error if the string does not represent an integer?

Can anybody point me to a way to check if a string represents a valid integer 
and then convert it to an integer?

It is very likely the string will contain leading zeros, and should not 
contain any trailing non-numeric characters.

Per the documentation (pickaxe 2), to_i won't quite do it, it will just ignore 
trailing non-numeric characters.

Thanks!

Randy Kramer