Function to tell if a string contains a number

PB____

@pianofire This might be a stupid question, but what does this notation do: variable[ 0:index - 1 ] and variable[ index + 1: ]? I don't recall sing that before in the documentation.

pianofire

@PB____ Not a stupid question. Have a look at this: https://fuzearena.com/forum/topic/70/hints-and-tips/10

PB____

@pianofire nice & thanks! I wish I knew this earlier...

Discostew

This post is deleted!

Discostew

Well, here I was trying to sound smart, only to realize my method has an issue. While you can use float() to help convert and check, it truncates whatever is invalid and onward. So if you had a string like "10x589.0", using float() would return 10. So I need to go back and see how to deal with that, without looping.

pianofire

@Discostew maybe convert it back to a string and compare the length with the original?

Discostew

@pianofire Problem with doing that is with converting a float to a string, it may include extra 0s to the fraction portion that may not be in the original string, so the length may not be the same. But, I just made a revision to the function. No floats used.

function isNumber( variable )
  int result = false
  if( len( variable ) > 0 ) then
    if(( len( variable ) > 1 ) and (variable[ 0 ] == "-" )) then
      variable = "1" + variable[1:]
    else
      variable = "1" + variable
    endIf
    int cut = len( str( int( variable )))
    variable = variable[ cut: ]
    if( len( variable ) > 0 ) then
      if(( len( variable ) > 1 ) and ( variable[ 0 ] == "." )) then
        cut = len( str( int( "1" + variable[1:] )))
        variable = variable[ cut: ]
        result = len( variable ) == 0
      endIf
    else
      result = 2
    endIf
  endIf
return result

You may be wondering why I tack on a "1" to the string. It's to make sure we have a correct number of characters to cull if a number starts with leading 0s. Converting a string like "1000" to an int then back to a string will still be "1000", but a string like "0010" converted to an int then back to a string will be "10", so the length doesn't match.

So now, you have a function to check if a string is a number, but what if you wanted to check if the number is specifically an integer? Or a float? Well, those are simple.

function isInteger( variable )
  int result = false
  if( isNumber( variable )) then
    result = strFind( variable, "." ) == -1
  endIf
return result

function isFloat( variable )
  int result = false
  if( isNumber( variable )) then
    result = strFind( variable, "." ) != -1
  endIf
return result

You can technically exclude those specific functions as I made one slight alteration to the code. With true and false, a value of 0 means false and a non-0 is true. But, it's now set to where you can specifically check what type the number is, as a return value of 1 means it's a float, and a return value of 2 means it's an integer.

pianofire

@Discostew I was thinking of starting a section for "Approved" user defined functions that people could download and use in their code (with attribution) and I was wondering if you would let me use this one as the first?

I have also added the unit test code from @PB____ (again if that is OK with them?)

// function:    isNumber
// description: find out if a string variable contains (only) a numeric value
// author :     @Discostew
// arguments :
//     variable: string to be tested
// returns :
//     0 : not a numeric value
//     1 : a float
//     2 : an integer
function isNumber( variable )
    int result = false
    if ( len( variable ) > 0 ) then
        if ( ( len ( variable ) > 1 ) and ( variable[ 0 ] == "-" ) ) then
            variable = "1" + variable[ 1: ]
        else
            variable = "1" + variable
        endIf
        int cut = len( str( int( variable ) ) )
        variable = variable[ cut: ]
        if ( len( variable ) > 0 ) then
            if ( ( len ( variable ) > 1 ) and ( variable[ 0 ] == "." ) ) then      
                cut = len( str( int( "1" + variable[ 1: ] ) ) )
                variable = variable[ cut: ]
                result = len (variable ) == 0
            endIf
        else
            result = 2
        endIf
    endIf
return result

// Unit test code by @PB____

// print with new line
function printLn( value )
    print( value, "\n" )
return void

// join a series of values together in a string
function join(values)
    string result = ""
    int i
    for i = 0 to len( values ) loop
        result += str( values[ i ] )
    repeat
return result

// assert that value1 is equal to value2
function assertEqual( value1, value2 )
    string str1 = str( value1 )
    string str2 = str( value2 )
    string outcome = ""
    if str1 == str2 then
        ink( lime )
        outcome = "success"
    else
        ink( red )
        outcome = "fail"
    endif
    println( join( [ "assert ", str1, " equals to ", str2, ": ", outcome ] ) )
return void

// print test description
function description( text )
    ink( { 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1 } )
    println(text)
return void

// run unit tests with the specified delay at the end
function runUnitTests( duration )
    description( "test integer" )
    string stringVar = "12345"
    int output = isNumber( stringVar )
    assertEqual( output, 2 )
    
    description( "test float" )
    string stringVar = "3.1415926"
    int output = isNumber( stringVar )
    assertEqual( output, 1 )

    description( "test negative" )    
    string stringVar = "-10"
    int output = isNumber(stringVar)
    assertEqual( output, 2 )

    description( "test text" )
    string stringVar = "the quick brown fox"
    int output = isNumber( stringVar )
    assertEqual( output, 0 )

    description( "test mixed" )
    string stringVar = "10x589.0"
    int output = isNumber( stringVar )
    assertEqual( output, 0 )

    description( "test float with no integer part" )
    string stringVar = ".5"
    int output = isNumber( stringVar )
    assertEqual( output, 1 )

    update()
    sleep( duration )
return void

runUnitTests( 10 )

PB____

Of course, happy to be a part of it :)
Especially when sharing functions like this, I think including unit tests with them is a great idea :)

Discostew

@pianofire Go right ahead. This is for the benefit of the community.