Question

I’m converting a CSV file to a local 2D array. I wanted to know if there is a better way to convert strings to floats/int rather then using regex followed by a parseFloat() / parseInt.

Ideas / Suggestions?

// numex() - checkes to see if the string (str) is a number
// returns number.valid (true||false) and number.value = (float||int||string)
numex = function(str){
  number = {};
  number.valid = false;
  number.value = str;
  // if we see a number then convert it to a floating point or integer
  if((number.value.search(/[^0-9^\.^\$^\%^\-^\"^,^ ]+/) < 0) && str.length > 0) {  
    number.valid = true;
    number.value = str.replace(/[^\-^0-9^\.]+/g, ''); // TODO add % coversion code for example if we see a 10% covert it to .1
    if(number.value.search(/[\.]/) >= 0) {  
       number.value = parseFloat(number.value); // replace floating point
    } else {
       number.value = parseInt(number.value); // replace integers
    }
  }
  return number; // number.valid = true or false;
}

var num = numex("1.101");
alert(num.value);

Answer 1

I don’t think you need to use regexp at all. Try this:

var num = {};  
num.value = new Number(str);  
num.valid = !isNaN(num.value);

Number constructor is more strict than parseInt and parseFloat in that it does not accept strings like 10aaa or 1.2bbb so there is no need to perform a regexp check.