`can_parse?` check function?

[Bryant Luu]

I have an endpoint that receives strings and I was hoping there was a function in the Decimal the library that would return a boolean if it could be parsed.

decimal? is a type check.

D.decimal?("3.5") -> false

Does it make sense to have a can_parse? function that would behave like:

D.can_parse?("3.5") -> true

D.can_parse?("Foo") -> false

[Fernando Tapia Rico]

There is a Decimal.parse/1 function that can be easily wrapped to return a boolean.

However, it’s common to use the parsed value if it was correct, so maybe using Decimal.parse/1 is a better option for your use case 🙂

[Wojtek Mach]

I don't think it's a common enough use case and it's trivial to implement yourself:

def can_parse?(string) do
  case Decimal.parse(string) do
    {:ok, _} -> true
    :error -> false
  end
end

so I don't think it belongs to the package. Thanks!

[Bryant Luu]

@fertapric Thanks for the speedy reply!

@wojtekmach That's what I'm currently doing, but I thought it would be cleaner to have it in the package if it was a common enough use case. Thanks for considering :)