Print floating point values without leading zero

Question

Trying to use a format specifier to print a float that will be less than 1 without the leading zero. I came up with a bit of a hack but I assume there is a way to just drop

Answer 1

The problem is to print a float without the leading zero, regardless of the sign of the float. The leading zero always precedes a decimal point. Split the printed float on '0.', and then rejoin the resulting list around just '.', as in below:

>> flt = -.31415926

-0.31415926

>> '%.4f' % flt    # prints leading zero

'-0.3142'

>> '.'.join( ('%.4f' % flt).split('0.'))    # removes leading zero

'-.3142'