Detect whether a Python string is a number or a letter
For a string of length 1 you can simply perform isdigit()
or isalpha()
If your string length is greater than 1, you can make a function something like..
def isinteger(a):
try:
int(a)
return True
except ValueError:
return False
Check if string is nonnegative digit (integer) and alphabet
You may use str.isdigit()
and str.isalpha()
to check whether a given string is a nonnegative integer (0 or greater) and alphabetical character, respectively.
Sample Results:
# For alphabet
>>> 'A'.isdigit()
False
>>> 'A'.isalpha()
True
# For digit
>>> '1'.isdigit()
True
>>> '1'.isalpha()
False
Check for strings as positive/negative - integer/float
str.isdigit()
returns False
if the string is a negative number or a float number. For example:
# returns `False` for float
>>> '123.3'.isdigit()
False
# returns `False` for negative number
>>> '-123'.isdigit()
False
If you want to also check for the negative integers and float
, then you may write a custom function to check for it as:
def is_number(n):
try:
float(n) # Type-casting the string to `float`.
# If string is not a valid `float`,
# it'll raise `ValueError` exception
except ValueError:
return False
return True
Sample Run:
>>> is_number('123') # positive integer number
True
>>> is_number('123.4') # positive float number
True
>>> is_number('-123') # negative integer number
True
>>> is_number('-123.4') # negative `float` number
True
>>> is_number('abc') # `False` for "some random" string
False
Discard "NaN" (not a number) strings while checking for number
The above functions will return True
for the "NAN" (Not a number) string because for Python it is valid float representing it is not a number. For example:
>>> is_number('NaN')
True
In order to check whether the number is "NaN", you may use math.isnan()
as:
>>> import math
>>> nan_num = float('nan')
>>> math.isnan(nan_num)
True
Or if you don't want to import additional library to check this, then you may simply check it via comparing it with itself using ==
. Python returns False
when nan
float is compared with itself. For example:
# `nan_num` variable is taken from above example
>>> nan_num == nan_num
False
Hence, above function is_number
can be updated to return False
for "NaN"
as:
def is_number(n):
is_number = True
try:
num = float(n)
# check for "nan" floats
is_number = num == num # or use `math.isnan(num)`
except ValueError:
is_number = False
return is_number
Sample Run:
>>> is_number('Nan') # not a number "Nan" string
False
>>> is_number('nan') # not a number string "nan" with all lower cased
False
>>> is_number('123') # positive integer
True
>>> is_number('-123') # negative integer
True
>>> is_number('-1.12') # negative `float`
True
>>> is_number('abc') # "some random" string
False
Allow Complex Number like "1+2j" to be treated as valid number
The above function will still return you False
for the complex numbers. If you want your is_number
function to treat complex numbers as valid number, then you need to type cast your passed string to complex()
instead of float()
. Then your is_number
function will look like:
def is_number(n):
is_number = True
try:
# v type-casting the number here as `complex`, instead of `float`
num = complex(n)
is_number = num == num
except ValueError:
is_number = False
return is_number
Sample Run:
>>> is_number('1+2j') # Valid
True # : complex number
>>> is_number('1+ 2j') # Invalid
False # : string with space in complex number represetantion
# is treated as invalid complex number
>>> is_number('123') # Valid
True # : positive integer
>>> is_number('-123') # Valid
True # : negative integer
>>> is_number('abc') # Invalid
False # : some random string, not a valid number
>>> is_number('nan') # Invalid
False # : not a number "nan" string
PS: Each operation for each check depending on the type of number comes with additional overhead. Choose the version of is_number
function which fits your requirement.