How to determine if a string is a number with C++?

Question

I\'ve had quite a bit of trouble trying to write a function that checks if a string is a number. For a game I am writing I just need to check if a line from the file I am r

Answer 1

This function takes care of all the possible cases:

bool AppUtilities::checkStringIsNumber(std::string s){
    //Eliminate obvious irritants that could spoil the party
    //Handle special cases here, e.g. return true for "+", "-", "" if they are acceptable as numbers to you
    if (s == "" || s == "." || s == "+" || s == "-" || s == "+." || s == "-.") return false;

    //Remove leading / trailing spaces **IF** they are acceptable to you
    while (s.size() > 0 && s[0] == ' ') s = s.substr(1, s.size() - 1);
    while (s.size() > 0 && s[s.size() - 1] == ' ') s = s.substr(0, s.size() - 1);


    //Remove any leading + or - sign
    if (s[0] == '+' || s[0] == '-')
        s = s.substr(1, s.size() - 1);

    //Remove decimal points
    long prevLength = s.size();

    size_t start_pos = 0;
    while((start_pos = s.find(".", start_pos)) != std::string::npos) 
        s.replace(start_pos, 1, "");

    //If the string had more than 2 decimal points, return false.
    if (prevLength > s.size() + 1) return false;

    //Check that you are left with numbers only!!
    //Courtesy selected answer by Charles Salvia above
    std::string::const_iterator it = s.begin();
    while (it != s.end() && std::isdigit(*it)) ++it;
    return !s.empty() && it == s.end();

    //Tada....
}