Convert a list of strings to either int or float

Question

I have a list which looks something like this:

[\'1\', \'2\', \'3.4\', \'5.6\', \'7.8\']

How do I change the first two to int

Answer 1

Use a conditional inside a list comprehension

>>> s = ['1', '2', '3.4', '5.6', '7.8']
>>> [float(i) if '.' in i else int(i) for i in s]
[1, 2, 3.4, 5.6, 7.8]

Interesting edge case of exponentials. You can add onto the conditional.

>>> s = ['1', '2', '3.4', '5.6', '7.8' , '1e2']
>>> [float(i) if '.' in i or 'e' in i else int(i) for i in s]
[1, 2, 3.4, 5.6, 7.8, 100.0]

Using isdigit is the best as it takes care of all the edge cases (mentioned by Steven in a comment)

>>> s = ['1', '2', '3.4', '5.6', '7.8']
>>> [int(i) if i.isdigit() else float(i) for i in s]
[1, 2, 3.4, 5.6, 7.8, 100.0]

Answer 2

If you want to display as the same list append the list by using the following query:

item = input("Enter your Item to the List: ")
shopList.append(int(item) if item.isdigit() else float(item))

Here when the user enters int values or float values it appends the list shopList and stores these values in it.

Answer 3

Use isdigit method of string:

numbers = [int(s) if s.isdigit() else float(s) for s in numbers]

or with map:

numbers = map(lambda x: int(x) if x.isdigit() else float(x), numbers)

Answer 4

Use a helper function:

def int_or_float(s):
    try:
        return int(s)
    except ValueError:
        return float(s)

Then use a list comprehension to apply the function:

[int_or_float(el) for el in lst] 

Answer 5

Why not use ast.literal_eval?

import ast

[ast.literal_eval(el) for el in lst]

Should handle all corner cases. It's a little heavyweight for this use case, but if you expect to handle any Number-like string in the list, this'll do it.

Answer 6

def st_t_onumber(x):
    import numbers
    # if any number
    if isinstance(x,numbers.Number):
        return x
    # if non a number try convert string to float or it
    for type_ in (int, float):
        try:
            return type_(x)
        except ValueError:
            continue

l = ['1', '2', '3.4', '5.6', '7.8']

li = [ st_t_onumber(x) for x in l]

print(li)

[1, 2, 3.4, 5.6, 7.8]