From: Chris Morris <chrismo@...>
Date: 2002-03-28T12:55:42+09:00
Subject: RE: parsing strings into numbers

> Kinda messy, but you can do
> 
>   result = Integer(value) rescue Float(value)
> 
> or
> 
>   result = Integer(value) rescue Float(value) rescue nil

Cool ... this is actually much better than the road I was going down:

    if (value =~ /[\d-]+/) && !(value =~ /[.]/) && !(value =~ /[^\d-]/)
      value.to_i
    elsif (value =~ /[\d.-]+/) && !(value =~ /[^\d.-]/)
      value.to_f
    else
      value
    end

... and this doesn't take into account any of the weird cases:

  4e5
  Oxaabb
  ...
  etc.

(Also, very cool inline error handling. Ruby continues to rock and amaze).

Chris