Add util function to check numeric type

chipathlon/utils.py

@@ -47,4 +47,17 @@ def downloadFile(url, localpath, urltype="ftp://", retries=3, overwrite=True, ch
     else:
         print "File already exists, skipping download.\n"
     return
-
+# http://pythoncentral.io/how-to-check-if-a-string-is-a-number-in-python-including-unicode/
+def is_number(s):
+    try:
+        float(s)
+        return True
+    except ValueError:
+        pass
+    try:
+        import unicodedata
+        unicodedata.numeric(s)
+        return True
+    except (TypeError, ValueError):
+        pass
+    return False