Question

I am trying to read a file using csv.DictReader

I have a field that is supposed to be an integer.if it is empty i will set it as DEFAULT
if it is an integer i do nothing.if it is not an integer i check if it is a quoted integer(like '1234').if so I will convert it to integer.Else an exception is raised.

it works as expected if its empty or it is an integer.Now if it is a quoted integer(like '1234') ,an exception is raised integer invalid literal for float(): '1234'.

it is not supposed to raise exception in this case.

I think it has something to do with the way DictReader reads the csv file.
Everyhting else is just fine.Please help

 if not line[key]:
    line[key]='DEFAULT'
 elif not isinstance(line[key], (int, long, float)) :                        
    try:
      line[key]=float(line[key])
    except Exception,e :
      print e

Answer 1

The problem is that the single quotes are part of your string:

In [7]: float("'1234'")
ValueError: invalid literal for float(): '1234'

If you remove them, things should work:

In [8]: float("'1234'".strip("'"))
Out[9]: 1234.0