[Taro]

I am grateful for the thorough replies.

Originally Posted by Philip M

As its name implies, parseInt() parses a string value and returns an integer. Syntax:- parseInt(string, radix)
If the radix parameter is omitted, JavaScript assumes the following:
- If the string begins with "0x", the radix is 16 (hexadecimal)
- If the string begins with "0", the radix is 8 (octal). This feature is deprecated
- If the string begins with any other value, the radix is 10 (decimal)

parseFloat() returns the real (decimal or floating point) value of the number parsed from a string value. If the first character in the string is a number, it parses the string until it reaches the end of the number, and returns the number as a number, not as a string.

You should also take a look at the Number() function.

Note that as always Javascript is case-sensitive and parseint will return an error.

"We have to remember that horses are only human ...." - Racing commentator

Well, I did get an error in the function I was writing, and forget to make the 'F' or 'I' upper case. Sometimes I try to figure out what was wrong with the code, after looking at the misguided JavaScript errors from the HTML-Kit software I was using.

Originally Posted by Dormilich

note: although parseInt() parses the input as Integer, the number returned is a float* (because float (IEEE 754 double) is the only datatype for numbers in JavaScript)


* - might be important for large integers

Good to know.

Originally Posted by felgall

parseFloat() handles very small numbers and very big numbers
- eg parseFloat('1e100') returns the same number (1 googol - 1 followed by a hundred 0) as
Math.pow(10,100) but without having to calculate what 10 to the 100th power is.

parseInt() handles number bases between 2 and 36 to convert numbers to base 10
- for example parseInt('100',2) returns 4 and parseInt('ff',16) returns 255 and parseInt('z',36) returns 35.

As a side effect both drop any characters from the end that are not numbers
- eg parseInt('39',8) will return 3 and ignore the 9
This side effect is useful when processing style related numbers eg. parseInt('250px',10) returns 250.

If you just want to convert a string to a number without the number being very big/small or in a different number base then Number() is the function to use as it just handles regular numbers without all the extra overheads needed to handle numbers such as '1.35e-25' and '0xffaa'
- for example Number('120') returns 120.

I did not realize that there is so much to JavaScript functions, like the parseInt('39',8), rather than just putting a single value. I do find the Number() function very simple to use.