isFloat: Without Exception-Handling

[Magnus Lyckå]

Thomas Guettler wrote:
> Is there a way to write the following
> method without using exceptions?
> 
> def isFloat(string):
>     is_float=1
>     try:
>         float(string)
>     except:
>         is_float=0
>     return is_float

Something like this perhaps:

import re

def isFloat(S):
     floatRE = r"^[-+]?(\d+\.?\d*|\.\d+)([eE][-+]?\d+)?$"
     return re.match(floatRE, str(S)) is not None

I'm not sure it's faster though.


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Magnus Lycka, Thinkware AB
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