From c80607489ccab9f72a1efe860757725896515f87 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jeff Carr <jcarr@wit.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:19:36 -0500
Subject: the point of cobol is to turn everything into a string

---
 int.go | 41 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 41 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 int.go

diff --git a/int.go b/int.go
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd91a16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/int.go
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+package cobol
+
+import (
+	"strconv"
+	"strings"
+)
+
+// just give back an int
+func Int(maybeInt any) int {
+	switch v := maybeInt.(type) {
+	case int:
+		return v
+	case *int:
+		return *v
+	case string:
+		s := strings.TrimSpace(v)
+		if s == "" {
+			return 0
+		}
+		i, err := strconv.Atoi(s)
+		if err == nil {
+			return i
+		}
+		parts := strings.Fields(s)
+		if len(parts) == 0 {
+			return 0
+		}
+		// check every field for an int. sure, why not
+		for _, part := range parts {
+			if part == "" {
+				continue
+			}
+			i, err := strconv.Atoi(part)
+			if err == nil {
+				return i
+			}
+		}
+		return i
+	}
+	return 0
+}
-- 
cgit v1.2.3