How to extract a floating number from a string
Python docs has an answer that covers +/-, and exponent notation
scanf() Token Regular Expression
%e, %E, %f, %g [-+]?(\d+(\.\d*)?|\.\d+)([eE][-+]?\d+)?
%i [-+]?(0[xX][\dA-Fa-f]+|0[0-7]*|\d+)
This regular expression does not support international formats where a comma is used as the separator character between the whole and fractional part (3,14159).
In that case, replace all \.
with [.,]
in the above float regex.
Regular Expression
International float [-+]?(\d+([.,]\d*)?|[.,]\d+)([eE][-+]?\d+)?
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+|\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
You may like to try something like this which covers all the bases, including not relying on whitespace after the number:
>>> import re
>>> numeric_const_pattern = r"""
... [-+]? # optional sign
... (?:
... (?: \d* \. \d+ ) # .1 .12 .123 etc 9.1 etc 98.1 etc
... |
... (?: \d+ \.? ) # 1. 12. 123. etc 1 12 123 etc
... )
... # followed by optional exponent part if desired
... (?: [Ee] [+-]? \d+ ) ?
... """
>>> rx = re.compile(numeric_const_pattern, re.VERBOSE)
>>> rx.findall(".1 .12 9.1 98.1 1. 12. 1 12")
['.1', '.12', '9.1', '98.1', '1.', '12.', '1', '12']
>>> rx.findall("-1 +1 2e9 +2E+09 -2e-9")
['-1', '+1', '2e9', '+2E+09', '-2e-9']
>>> rx.findall("current level: -2.03e+99db")
['-2.03e+99']
>>>
For easy copy-pasting:
numeric_const_pattern = '[-+]? (?: (?: \d* \. \d+ ) | (?: \d+ \.? ) )(?: [Ee] [+-]? \d+ ) ?'
rx = re.compile(numeric_const_pattern, re.VERBOSE)
rx.findall("Some example: Jr. it. was .23 between 2.3 and 42.31 seconds")