parsing engineering symbols

[Bengt Richter]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:07:02 +0530, Suresh Jeevanandam <jm.suresh at gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>	I want to convert a string to float value. The string contains 
>engineering symbols.
>	For example,
>	
>	s = '12k'
>
>	I want some function which would return 12000
>		function(s)
>		=> 12000.0
>	I searched the web, but could not find any function.
>
It should be easy enough, if you can define precisely what
"contains engineering symbols" means ;-)

Regards,
Bengt Richter