Converting a string into a float that includes the negative

[MRAB]

On 2015-11-08 02:11, phamtony33 at gmail.com wrote:
> I am having issue with converting the string into a float because there is a negative, so only end up with "ValueError: invalid literal for float(): 81.4]"
>
> def contains_words(word,msg):
> 	if word in msg:
> 		return true
> 	else:
> 		return false
> 		
> def get_tweet(tweet_line):
> 	part_list = tweet_line.split('\t')
> 	tweet = part_list[3]
> 	return tweet
>
> def get_longitude(tweet_line):
> 	part_list = tweet_line.split('\t')
> 	gps = part_list[0]
> 	gps_list = gps.split(', ')
> 	long = gps_list[1]
> 	long1 = long[1:]
> 	longitude = float(long1)
> 	return longitude
>
> a = get_longitude("[41.3, -81.4]\t6\t2011-08-28 19:02:28\tyay. little league world series!")
> print a
>
> the answer should be
> get_longitude("[41.3, -81.4]\t6\t2011-08-28 19:02:28\tyay. little league world series!") → -81.4
>
You're slicing the wrong end off 'long'.

You have '-81.4]'. You want '-81.4'. You should be doing long[ : -1].