How do I check if a string is a number (float)?

Question

Can someone tell me a method to check how can I represent a string as a number in Python?

I am using this function right now:

def is_number(s):
    try:
        float(s)
        return True
    except ValueError:
        return False

This method is slow and clunky. So please help me with it. 

Answer 1

It's wrong to say that method is "slow and clunky", but if you want another method then use isdigit() function:

>>> q = "14634"
>>> q.isdigit()
True
>>> w = "074spam"
>>> w.isdigit()
False

You can use unicode too, but that's your own preference.