compare two python strings that contain numbers

Question

UPDATE: I should have specified this sooner, but not all of the names are simply floats. For example, some of them are \"prefixed\" with \"YT\". So for example\" YT1.1. so,

Answer 1

This is not a built-in method, but it ought to work:

>>> def lt(num1, num2):
...     for a, b in zip(num1.split('.'), num2.split('.')):
...         if int(a) < int(b):
...             return True
...         if int(a) > int(b):
...             return False
...     return False
... 
... lt('4.2', '4.11')
0: True

That can be cleaned up, but it gives you the gist.