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

I needed to determine if a string cast into basic types (float,int,str,bool). After not finding anything on the internet I created this:

def str_to_type (s):
    """ Get possible cast type for a string

    Parameters
    ----------
    s : string

    Returns
    -------
    float,int,str,bool : type
        Depending on what it can be cast to

    """    
    try:                
        f = float(s)        
        if "." not in s:
            return int
        return float
    except ValueError:
        value = s.upper()
        if value == "TRUE" or value == "FALSE":
            return bool
        return type(s)

Example

str_to_type("true") # bool
str_to_type("6.0") # float
str_to_type("6") # int
str_to_type("6abc") # str
str_to_type(u"6abc") # unicode       

You can capture the type and use it

s = "6.0"
type_ = str_to_type(s) # float
f = type_(s)