CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaarraysstringintdouble
SpaceSpaghetti
SpaceSpaghetti

Reputation: 71

Is it possible to check an array of strings, if an element within it could be turned into an int or double?

I was wondering if you could check the elements in an array of strings, to see if they could be parsed into an int or double? I know you could try to parse the element and handle the exception thrown but is there another way?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 76

Answers (1)

CyberStems
CyberStems

Reputation: 358

use a regex like this -?\d+(.\d+)?

-?     --> optional negative symbol
\d+    --> indicates a sequence of one or more numbers
.?     --> optional decimal (for floats)
(\d+)? --> optional digits following the decimal

the command to match would be like str.matches("-?\\d+(.\\d+)?"); and I'd just iterate through it with an enhanced for loop. String.matches() is a built in boolean function so if the string can't be converted to a float or int then it'll return false.

the double \\ is just to escape a literal \ character.

If you don't want the pattern to match something like a portion of fewkjnf12.345r52v then simply just add a carat to indicate that the beginning of the float/int should have no strings, and a dollar sign to the end of the string to ensure nothing comes after it

i.e ^-?\d+(.\d+)?$

please visit this site to see the regex in action

Upvotes: 1

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