How can I check for NaN values?

Question

float(\'nan\') results in Nan (not a number). But how do I check for it? Should be very easy, but I cannot find it.

Answer 1

All the methods to tell if the variable is NaN or None:

None type

In [1]: from numpy import math

In [2]: a = None
In [3]: not a
Out[3]: True

In [4]: len(a or ()) == 0
Out[4]: True

In [5]: a == None
Out[5]: True

In [6]: a is None
Out[6]: True

In [7]: a != a
Out[7]: False

In [9]: math.isnan(a)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<ipython-input-9-6d4d8c26d370>", line 1, in <module>
    math.isnan(a)
TypeError: a float is required

In [10]: len(a) == 0
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<ipython-input-10-65b72372873e>", line 1, in <module>
    len(a) == 0
TypeError: object of type 'NoneType' has no len()

NaN type

In [11]: b = float('nan')
In [12]: b
Out[12]: nan

In [13]: not b
Out[13]: False

In [14]: b != b
Out[14]: True

In [15]: math.isnan(b)
Out[15]: True

Answer 2

Well I entered this post, because i've had some issues with the function:

math.isnan()

There are problem when you run this code:

a = "hello"
math.isnan(a)

It raises exception. My solution for that is to make another check:

def is_nan(x):
    return isinstance(x, float) and math.isnan(x)

Answer 3

math.isnan(x)

Return True if x is a NaN (not a number), and False otherwise.

>>> import math
>>> x = float('nan')
>>> math.isnan(x)
True

Answer 4

For nan of type float

>>> import pandas as pd
>>> value = float(nan)
>>> type(value)
>>> <class 'float'>
>>> pd.isnull(value)
True
>>>
>>> value = 'nan'
>>> type(value)
>>> <class 'str'>
>>> pd.isnull(value)
False

Answer 5

I actually just ran into this, but for me it was checking for nan, -inf, or inf. I just used

if float('-inf') < float(num) < float('inf'):

This is true for numbers, false for nan and both inf, and will raise an exception for things like strings or other types (which is probably a good thing). Also this does not require importing any libraries like math or numpy (numpy is so damn big it doubles the size of any compiled application).

Answer 6

Here are three ways where you can test a variable is "NaN" or not.

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import math

#For single variable all three libraries return single boolean
x1 = float("nan")

print(f"It's pd.isna  : {pd.isna(x1)}")
print(f"It's np.isnan  : {np.isnan(x1)}")
print(f"It's math.isnan : {math.isnan(x1)}")

Output

It's pd.isna  : True
It's np.isnan  : True
It's math.isnan  : True