How to extract a floating number from a string

Question

I have a number of strings similar to Current Level: 13.4 db. and I would like to extract just the floating point number. I say floating and not decimal as it's sometimes whole. Can RegEx do this or is there a better way?

Answer 1

If your float is always expressed in decimal notation something like

>>> import re
>>> re.findall("\d+\.\d+", "Current Level: 13.4db.")
['13.4']

may suffice.

A more robust version would be:

>>> re.findall(r"[-+]?(?:\d*\.*\d+)", "Current Level: -13.2db or 14.2 or 3")
['-13.2', '14.2', '3']

If you want to validate user input, you could alternatively also check for a float by stepping to it directly:

user_input = "Current Level: 1e100 db"
for token in user_input.split():
    try:
        # if this succeeds, you have your (first) float
        print(float(token), "is a float")
    except ValueError:
        print(token, "is something else")

# => Would print ...
#
# Current is something else
# Level: is something else
# 1e+100 is a float
# db is something else