Python xlrd package issue

Question

Is there any way to overcome the next problem: When using the xlrd package in Python, the value '1' in the excel file is shows as '1.0'.

Now, I am writing a script that should be able to notice the difference, I am using this values as indexes, so '1' and '1.0' are completely different indexes, but I cant find any way to overcome this issue.

Is there something I can do?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, this is a common problem with xlrd. You generally need to convert to int, when the number is actually of int type and rest of the times you need it as a float itself.

So here is something that works out well in most cases:

 int_value = int(float_value)
 if float_value == int_value:
     converted_value = int_value
 else:
     converted_value = float_value

Example

>>> a = 123.0
>>> type(a)
<type 'float'>
>>> b = int(a)
>>> a == b
True