How do I check if a string is a number (float)?

Question

What is the best possible way to check if a string can be represented as a number in Python?

The function I currently have right now is:

def is_numb         


        

Answer 1

TL;DR The best solution is s.replace('.','',1).isdigit()

I did some benchmarks comparing the different approaches

def is_number_tryexcept(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    try:
        float(s)
        return True
    except ValueError:
        return False

import re    
def is_number_regex(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    if re.match("^\d+?\.\d+?$", s) is None:
        return s.isdigit()
    return True


def is_number_repl_isdigit(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    return s.replace('.','',1).isdigit()

If the string is not a number, the except-block is quite slow. But more importantly, the try-except method is the only approach that handles scientific notations correctly.

funcs = [
          is_number_tryexcept, 
          is_number_regex,
          is_number_repl_isdigit
          ]

a_float = '.1234'

print('Float notation ".1234" is not supported by:')
for f in funcs:
    if not f(a_float):
        print('\t -', f.__name__)

Float notation ".1234" is not supported by:
- is_number_regex

scientific1 = '1.000000e+50'
scientific2 = '1e50'


print('Scientific notation "1.000000e+50" is not supported by:')
for f in funcs:
    if not f(scientific1):
        print('\t -', f.__name__)




print('Scientific notation "1e50" is not supported by:')
for f in funcs:
    if not f(scientific2):
        print('\t -', f.__name__)

Scientific notation "1.000000e+50" is not supported by:
- is_number_regex
- is_number_repl_isdigit
Scientific notation "1e50" is not supported by:
- is_number_regex
- is_number_repl_isdigit

EDIT: The benchmark results

import timeit

test_cases = ['1.12345', '1.12.345', 'abc12345', '12345']
times_n = {f.__name__:[] for f in funcs}

for t in test_cases:
    for f in funcs:
        f = f.__name__
        times_n[f].append(min(timeit.Timer('%s(t)' %f, 
                      'from __main__ import %s, t' %f)
                              .repeat(repeat=3, number=1000000)))

where the following functions were tested

from re import match as re_match
from re import compile as re_compile

def is_number_tryexcept(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    try:
        float(s)
        return True
    except ValueError:
        return False

def is_number_regex(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    if re_match("^\d+?\.\d+?$", s) is None:
        return s.isdigit()
    return True


comp = re_compile("^\d+?\.\d+?$")    

def compiled_regex(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    if comp.match(s) is None:
        return s.isdigit()
    return True


def is_number_repl_isdigit(s):
    """ Returns True is string is a number. """
    return s.replace('.','',1).isdigit()