From: Alex DeCaria Date: 2010-04-13T11:34:35+09:00 Subject: Method to groom a string to floating point representation I have a program that asks for the user to enter a string that represents a floating point number. Everytime a new character is typed I want a method that checks to make sure the string makes sense as a floating point number, and if not, deletes any bad characters. For instance, if the user enters '4.5e+6.7' I want the method to delete the extra decimal place and return '4.5e+67'. Or, if the user enters something like '4.5+e7' it deletes the misplaced plus sign and returens '4.7e7'. In short, I want the method to only allow correct representations of floating point numbers, but I want it to remain as a string. Anything other than a number or +, -, ., or e or E, should be deleted. I wrote a method that works like I want (attached), but it is long and cumbersome. I'm wondering if anyone has a shorter, better way to do this. --Alex Attachments: http://www.ruby-forum.com/attachment/4653/clean_string_lite.rb -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.