strtod

Arguments

str

single component, vector, or matrix of text (strings).

decimalseparator

the decimal separator chosen: "." (by default) or ",".

d

scalar, vector, or matrix of decimal numbers.

tails

a string or matrix of strings: remaining parts of str after the numerical heads (if any).

Description

[d, tails] = strtod(str) parses each string of str and tries to interpret its content as a decimal number:

• If it succeeds, at least for the heading part of str(i), the corresponding decimal number is returned in d(i). If any, the trailing part of str(i) is ignored and returned in tails(i); otherwise, tails(i) returns "".
• Otherwise, d(i) returns %nan, and tails(i) is the whole str(i).

Complex numbers: strtod(..) parses and returns only their real part, provided that it is writen before their imaginary part. strtod(..) does not acknowledge any thousands separator, neither " ", nor "," nor any other one. strtod(..) parses strings only against decimal numbers. It does not interpret hexadecimal, octal or other radix strings. strtod(..) does not interpret any name of Scilab predefined or user-defined variables or special strings for %inf or %nan. Hence we have: s = ["-0.034" "- 0.034" "+1234.5678" "1234 5678" "-.764" "+.432" "12,231.7" "-5.458,871" "1e43" "-3.5d-12" "-1.2+i" "i+1.2" "" "%inf" "Inf" "-Inf" "%i" "%pi" "%e" "%eps" "%F" "0x19B" "#14C4" "o5745" ] strtod(s) s = !-0.034 - 0.034 +1234.5678 1234 5678 ! !-.764 +.432 12,231.7 -5.458,871 ! !1e43 -3.5d-12 -1.2+i i+1.2 ! ! %inf Inf -Inf ! !%i %pi %e %eps ! !%F 0x19B #14C4 o5745 ! --> strtod(s) ans = -0.034 Nan 1234.5678 1234. -0.764 0.432 12. -5.458 1.000D+43 -3.500D-12 -1.2 Nan Nan Nan Nan Nan Nan Nan Nan Nan Nan 0. Nan Nan strtod(..) does not interpret escape sequences "\n", "\t", etc. This function is based on the strtod C function which causes different behaviors on Windows and Linux. In fact, on Windows, it is possible to use "d" or "D" for exponents, but it is not possible to use hexadecimal numbers.

Examples

s = ["123.556 abc " ".543"      "#58B" "0x73 " "%inf"
     "-1.47e-71"    "67,432.57" " 23,5" "-,57" "Inf" ]
[num, trail] = strtod(s);
num, "/"+trail+"/"

// With "," as decimal separator:
[num, trail] = strtod(s, ",");
num, "/"+trail+"/"

See also

• evstr — evaluates Scilab expressions and concatenates their results
• isnum — tests if a string represents a number
• isdigit — check that characters of a string are digits between 0 and 9
• bin2dec — convert from binary to decimal
• oct2dec — convert from octal to decimal
• hex2dec — convert from hexadecimal to decimal

History