Check if Character Strings Represent Numeric Values

Determines whether elements of a character vector represent valid numeric values. Unlike as.numeric(), this function performs a regex-based validation and does not produce warnings.

Usage

strIsNumeric(x, scientific = FALSE)

Arguments

x

a character vector to be tested

scientific

logical; if TRUE, scientific notation (e.g., "1e3") is allowed. Defaults to FALSE.

Value

A logical vector of the same length as x, indicating whether each element represents a numeric value.

Details

The function uses regular expressions via stringi to validate numeric formats. Valid formats include optional leading sign (+ or -), optional decimal point, and digits. If scientific = TRUE, exponential notation using e or E is also supported.

Note that special values such as "Inf", "-Inf", and "NaN" are not considered numeric by this function.

See also

as.numeric()

string-overview for an overview of all string utilities in pharos.

Examples

x <- c("123", "-3.141", "1e3", "foo", "Inf")

strIsNumeric(x)
#> [1]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE
strIsNumeric(x, scientific = TRUE)
#> [1]  TRUE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE