C++ IsFloat function

c++floating-pointstring

Does anybody know of a convenient means of determining if a string value "qualifies" as a floating-point number?

bool IsFloat( string MyString )
{
   ... etc ...

   return ... // true if float; false otherwise
}

Best Solution

If you can't use a Boost library function, you can write your own isFloat function like this.

#include <string>
#include <sstream>

bool isFloat( string myString ) {
    std::istringstream iss(myString);
    float f;
    iss >> noskipws >> f; // noskipws considers leading whitespace invalid
    // Check the entire string was consumed and if either failbit or badbit is set
    return iss.eof() && !iss.fail(); 
}

Related Solutions

Python – How to get a function name as a string

my_function.__name__

Using __name__ is the preferred method as it applies uniformly. Unlike func_name, it works on built-in functions as well:

>>> import time
>>> time.time.func_name
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AttributeError: 'builtin_function_or_method' object has no attribute 'func_name'
>>> time.time.__name__ 
'time'

Also the double underscores indicate to the reader this is a special attribute. As a bonus, classes and modules have a __name__ attribute too, so you only have remember one special name.

Why doesn’t C have unsigned floats

Why C++ doesn't have support for unsigned floats is because there is no equivalent machine code operations for the CPU to execute. So it would be very inefficient to support it.

If C++ did support it, then you would be sometimes using an unsigned float and not realizing that your performance has just been killed. If C++ supported it then every floating point operation would need to be checked to see if it is signed or not. And for programs that do millions of floating point operations, this is not acceptable.

So the question would be why don't hardware implementers support it. And I think the answer to that is that there was no unsigned float standard defined originally. Since languages like to be backwards compatible, even if it were added languages couldn't make use of it. To see the floating point spec you should look at the IEEE standard 754 Floating-Point.

You can get around not having an unsigned floating point type though by creating a unsigned float class that encapsulates a float or double and throws warnings if you try to pass in a negative number. This is less efficient, but probably if you aren't using them intensely you won't care about that slight performance loss.

I definitely see the usefulness of having an unsigned float. But C/C++ tends to chose efficiency that works best for everyone over safety.

Best Solution

Related Solutions

Python – How to get a function name as a string

Why doesn’t C have unsigned floats

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