Fredrik Lundh wrote: > Alistair King wrote: > > >> Is there any other way of removing double and single quotes from a >> number, as a string, to give the float value again? >> > > help(str) describes what you can do with a string (an object of type > 'str', that is). among the methods listed, you'll find: > > >> | strip(...) >> | S.strip([chars]) -> string or unicode >> | >> | Return a copy of the string S with leading and trailing >> | whitespace removed. >> | If chars is given and not None, remove characters in chars instead. >> | If chars is unicode, S will be converted to unicode before stripping >> > > which looks like it should be pretty useful for this specific case: > > >>> value = "'0.064250000000001084'" > >>> value > "'0.064250000000001084'" > >>> value.strip("'") > '0.064250000000001084' > >>> value.strip("'\"") > '0.064250000000001084' > >>> float(value.strip("'\"")) > 0.064250000000001084 > > </F> > > Thanks..
the code works great now. I know these things are quite simple to learn from books etc.. but i would be lost without this mailinglist, from lack of time. Hopefully soon i can give something more complicated. I ended up doing the dictionary formatting properly and the new code is: .............................................................................................................................. heavy = raw_input("\n\n@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@\n\nPlease enter the heaviest atom for which you obtained percentage values for, but not Oxygen or Hydrogen, ie, 'C', 'N', 'S', 'Br'...: ") def updateDS1v(Fxas, x): if Fxas !=0 and DS1v.get(x)!=None: value = DSvalues.get(heavy) floatvalue = float(value) atoms = DS1v.get(x) + Fxas*floatvalue else: value = DSvalues.get(heavy) floatvalue = float(value) DS1v[x] = Fxas*floatvalue updateDS1v(FCas, 'C') updateDS1v(FHas, 'H') updateDS1v(FOas, 'O') updateDS1v(FNas, 'N') updateDS1v(FSas, 'S') updateDS1v(FClas, 'Cl') updateDS1v(FBras, 'Br') updateDS1v(FZnas, 'Zn') .............................................................................................................................. it works perfectly now thanks for the help a -- Dr. Alistair King Research Chemist, Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science P.O. Box 55 (A.I. Virtasen aukio 1) FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Tel. +358 9 191 50392, Mobile +358 (0)50 5279446 Fax +358 9 191 50366 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list