How can I check if a string represents an int, without using try/except?

Question

Is there any way to tell whether a string represents an integer (e.g., \'3\', \'-17\' but not \'3.14\' or \'asf

Answer 1

Here is a function that parses without raising errors. It handles obvious cases returns None on failure (handles up to 2000 '-/+' signs by default on CPython!):

#!/usr/bin/env python

def get_int(number):
    splits = number.split('.')
    if len(splits) > 2:
        # too many splits
        return None
    if len(splits) == 2 and splits[1]:
        # handle decimal part recursively :-)
        if get_int(splits[1]) != 0:
            return None

    int_part = splits[0].lstrip("+")
    if int_part.startswith('-'):
        # handle minus sign recursively :-)
        return get_int(int_part[1:]) * -1
    # successful 'and' returns last truth-y value (cast is always valid)
    return int_part.isdigit() and int(int_part)

Some tests:

tests = ["0", "0.0", "0.1", "1", "1.1", "1.0", "-1", "-1.1", "-1.0", "-0", "--0", "---3", '.3', '--3.', "+13", "+-1.00", "--+123", "-0.000"]

for t in tests:
    print "get_int(%s) = %s" % (t, get_int(str(t)))

Results:

get_int(0) = 0
get_int(0.0) = 0
get_int(0.1) = None
get_int(1) = 1
get_int(1.1) = None
get_int(1.0) = 1
get_int(-1) = -1
get_int(-1.1) = None
get_int(-1.0) = -1
get_int(-0) = 0
get_int(--0) = 0
get_int(---3) = -3
get_int(.3) = None
get_int(--3.) = 3
get_int(+13) = 13
get_int(+-1.00) = -1
get_int(--+123) = 123
get_int(-0.000) = 0

For your needs you can use:

def int_predicate(number):
     return get_int(number) is not None