Python: How to check if a signed number is positive or negative or none?

Question

Simply, I am entering a value, I want to determine whether the value is alpha or not. If it is not alpha, I want to check if it is a number or not. If it is a number I want to check if it is positive or negative.

I read a lot about checking a signed number like -50. There are two ways, we can use something like this:

try:
   val = int(x)
except ValueError:
   print("That's not an int!")

Which I think I do not need it here and I do not know where to put it in my code.

The other way is to use .lstrip("-+"), but it is not working.

amount = 0
while True:
    amount = input("Enter your amount ===> ")
    if amount.isalpha() or amount.isspace() or amount == "":
        print("Please enter only a number without spaces")
    elif amount.lstrip("-+").isdigit():
        if int(amount) < 0:
            print("You entered a negative number")
        elif int(amount) > 6:
            print("You entered a very large number")
        else:
            print(" Why I am always being printed ?? ")
    else:
        print("Do not enter alnum data")

What am I doing wrong ?

Answer 1

This is how you would integrate a try/except block:

amount = 0
while True:
    amount = input("Hit me with your best num!")
    try:
        amount = int(amount)
        if amount < 0:
            print("That number is too tiny!")
        elif amount > 6:
            print("That number is yuge!")
        else:
            print("what a boring number, but I'll take it")
            break  # How you exit this loop
    except ValueError:
        print("Wow dude, that's like not even a number")

It does all the heavy lifting for you, as int() can process numbers with +/- automatically.