How to extract numbers from a string in Python?

Question

I would extract all the numbers contained in a string. Which is the better suited for the purpose, regular expressions or the isdigit() method?

Example:

Answer 1

This is more than a bit late, but you can extend the regex expression to account for scientific notation too.

import re

# Format is [(, ), ...]
ss = [("apple-12.34 ba33na fanc-14.23e-2yapple+45e5+67.56E+3",
       ['-12.34', '33', '-14.23e-2', '+45e5', '+67.56E+3']),
      ('hello X42 I\'m a Y-32.35 string Z30',
       ['42', '-32.35', '30']),
      ('he33llo 42 I\'m a 32 string -30', 
       ['33', '42', '32', '-30']),
      ('h3110 23 cat 444.4 rabbit 11 2 dog', 
       ['3110', '23', '444.4', '11', '2']),
      ('hello 12 hi 89', 
       ['12', '89']),
      ('4', 
       ['4']),
      ('I like 74,600 commas not,500', 
       ['74,600', '500']),
      ('I like bad math 1+2=.001', 
       ['1', '+2', '.001'])]

for s, r in ss:
    rr = re.findall("[-+]?[.]?[\d]+(?:,\d\d\d)*[\.]?\d*(?:[eE][-+]?\d+)?", s)
    if rr == r:
        print('GOOD')
    else:
        print('WRONG', rr, 'should be', r)

Gives all good!

Additionally, you can look at the AWS Glue built-in regex