test for real number

[mikemckee]

Hi,
I'm new to the group and new to Perl and am very glad to have such a 
resource available. Hopefully someday I'll be on the giving end of the 
help list but for now I'm stumped. How do I test an input to see if it 
is a real number?  I have a situation something like:

  $input = <STDIN>;
        chomp $input;

if (input equals a real number) {
         xxxxxx
}
else {
xxxx
}
best, michael