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

Casting to float and catching ValueError is probably the fastest way, since float() is specifically meant for just that. Anything else that requires string parsing (regex, etc) will likely be slower due to the fact that it's not tuned for this operation. My $0.02.