Python efficiently split currency sign and number in one string

Question

I have a string like \'$200,000,000\' or \'Yan300,000,000\'

I want to split the currency and number, and output a tuple (\'$\', \'200

Answer 1

import locale
import re
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'en_US.UTF-8')

def split_currency(text):
    _, currency, num = re.split('^(\D+)', text, 1)
    num = locale.atoi(num)
    return currency, num
print(split_currency('$200,000,000'))
# ('$', 200000000)
print(split_currency('Yan300,000,000'))
# ('Yan', 300000000)

split_currency will raise a ValueError if text does not start with a currency symbol (or anything that is not a digit). You could use try...except to handle that case differently if you wish.