[ruby-talk:00989] a question about to_i

Sorry, I'm quite new to ruby. But I encounterd the following problem. If
I have a string "bla" and apply to_i to it I get 0. This seems to be
quite strange because it is what it is a string so shouldn't an
exeception be rissen or s.th simular. 

And how do you check if a string is a number then? I used:
def is_integer?(potential_int)
  result = potential_int =~ /\D/
  if !result
	return TRUE
  else
	return FALSE
  end
end


But I don't think this might be the right way. Could s.o give me a hand?

Regards
Friedrich