Identify If a String Is a Number

This will return true if input is all numbers. Don't know if it's any better than TryParse, but it will work.

Regex.IsMatch(input, @"^\d+$")

If you just want to know if it has one or more numbers mixed in with characters, leave off the ^ + and $.

Regex.IsMatch(input, @"\d")

Edit: Actually I think it is better than TryParse because a very long string could potentially overflow TryParse.

You can also use:

using System.Linq;

stringTest.All(char.IsDigit);

It will return true for all Numeric Digits (not float) and false if input string is any sort of alphanumeric.

Please note: stringTest should not be an empty string as this would pass the test of being numeric.

I've used this function several times:

public static bool IsNumeric(object Expression)
{
    double retNum;

    bool isNum = Double.TryParse(Convert.ToString(Expression), System.Globalization.NumberStyles.Any, System.Globalization.NumberFormatInfo.InvariantInfo, out retNum);
    return isNum;
}

But you can also use;

bool b1 = Microsoft.VisualBasic.Information.IsNumeric("1"); //true
bool b2 = Microsoft.VisualBasic.Information.IsNumeric("1aa"); // false

From Benchmarking IsNumeric Options

_{(source: aspalliance.com)}

_{(source: aspalliance.com)}

This is probably the best option in C#.

If you want to know if the string contains a whole number (integer):

string someString;
// ...
int myInt;
bool isNumerical = int.TryParse(someString, out myInt);

The TryParse method will try to convert the string to a number (integer) and if it succeeds it will return true and place the corresponding number in myInt. If it can't, it returns false.

Solutions using the int.Parse(someString) alternative shown in other responses works, but it is much slower because throwing exceptions is very expensive. TryParse(...) was added to the C# language in version 2, and until then you didn't have a choice. Now you do: you should therefore avoid the Parse() alternative.

If you want to accept decimal numbers, the decimal class also has a .TryParse(...) method. Replace int with decimal in the above discussion, and the same principles apply.

In case you don't want to use int.Parse or double.Parse, you can roll your own with something like this:

public static class Extensions
{
    public static bool IsNumeric(this string s)
    {
        foreach (char c in s)
        {
            if (!char.IsDigit(c) && c != '.')
            {
                return false;
            }
        }

        return true;
    }
}

You can always use the built in TryParse methods for many datatypes to see if the string in question will pass.

Example.

decimal myDec;
var Result = decimal.TryParse("123", out myDec);

Result would then = True

decimal myDec;
var Result = decimal.TryParse("abc", out myDec);

Result would then = False

If you want to catch a broader spectrum of numbers, à la PHP's is_numeric, you can use the following:

// From PHP documentation for is_numeric
// ()

// Finds whether the given variable is numeric.

// Numeric strings consist of optional sign, any number of digits, optional decimal part and optional
// exponential part. Thus +0123.45e6 is a valid numeric value.

// Hexadecimal (e.g. 0xf4c3b00c), Binary (e.g. 0b10100111001), Octal (e.g. 0777) notation is allowed too but
// only without sign, decimal and exponential part.
static readonly Regex _isNumericRegex =
    new Regex(  "^(" +
                /*Hex*/ @"0x[0-9a-f]+"  + "|" +
                /*Bin*/ @"0b[01]+"      + "|" + 
                /*Oct*/ @"0[0-7]*"      + "|" +
                /*Dec*/ @"((?!0)|[-+]|(?=0+\.))(\d*\.)?\d+(e\d+)?" + 
                ")$" );
static bool IsNumeric( string value )
{
    return _isNumericRegex.IsMatch( value );
}

Unit Test:

static void IsNumericTest()
{
    string[] l_unitTests = new string[] { 
        "123",      /* TRUE */
        "abc",      /* FALSE */
        "12.3",     /* TRUE */
        "+12.3",    /* TRUE */
        "-12.3",    /* TRUE */
        "1.23e2",   /* TRUE */
        "-1e23",    /* TRUE */
        "1.2ef",    /* FALSE */
        "0x0",      /* TRUE */
        "0xfff",    /* TRUE */
        "0xf1f",    /* TRUE */
        "0xf1g",    /* FALSE */
        "0123",     /* TRUE */
        "0999",     /* FALSE (not octal) */
        "+0999",    /* TRUE (forced decimal) */
        "0b0101",   /* TRUE */
        "0b0102"    /* FALSE */
    };

    foreach ( string l_unitTest in l_unitTests )
        Console.WriteLine( l_unitTest + " => " + IsNumeric( l_unitTest ).ToString() );

    Console.ReadKey( true );
}

Keep in mind that just because a value is numeric doesn't mean it can be converted to a numeric type. For example, "999999999999999999999999999999.9999999999" is a perfeclty valid numeric value, but it won't fit into a .NET numeric type (not one defined in the standard library, that is).

I know this is an old thread, but none of the answers really did it for me - either inefficient, or not encapsulated for easy reuse. I also wanted to ensure it returned false if the string was empty or null. TryParse returns true in this case (an empty string does not cause an error when parsing as a number). So, here's my string extension method:

public static class Extensions
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Returns true if string is numeric and not empty or null or whitespace.
    /// Determines if string is numeric by parsing as Double
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="str"></param>
    /// <param name="style">Optional style - defaults to NumberStyles.Number (leading and trailing whitespace, leading and trailing sign, decimal point and thousands separator) </param>
    /// <param name="culture">Optional CultureInfo - defaults to InvariantCulture</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static bool IsNumeric(this string str, NumberStyles style = NumberStyles.Number,
        CultureInfo culture = null)
    {
        double num;
        if (culture == null) culture = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture;
        return Double.TryParse(str, style, culture, out num) && !String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(str);
    }
}

Simple to use:

var mystring = "1234.56789";
var test = mystring.IsNumeric();

Or, if you want to test other types of number, you can specify the 'style'. So, to convert a number with an Exponent, you could use:

var mystring = "5.2453232E6";
var test = mystring.IsNumeric(style: NumberStyles.AllowExponent);

Or to test a potential Hex string, you could use:

var mystring = "0xF67AB2";
var test = mystring.IsNumeric(style: NumberStyles.HexNumber)

The optional 'culture' parameter can be used in much the same way.

It is limited by not being able to convert strings that are too big to be contained in a double, but that is a limited requirement and I think if you are working with numbers larger than this, then you'll probably need additional specialised number handling functions anyway.

UPDATE of Kunal Noel Answer

stringTest.All(char.IsDigit);
// This returns true if all characters of the string are digits.

But, for this case we have that empty strings will pass that test, so, you can:

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(stringTest) && stringTest.All(char.IsDigit)){
   // Do your logic here
}

You can use TryParse to determine if the string can be parsed into an integer.

int i;
bool bNum = int.TryParse(str, out i);

The boolean will tell you if it worked or not.

If you want to know if a string is a number, you could always try parsing it:

var numberString = "123";
int number;

int.TryParse(numberString , out number);

Note that TryParse returns a bool, which you can use to check if your parsing succeeded.

I guess this answer will just be lost in between all the other ones, but anyway, here goes.

I ended up on this question via Google because I wanted to check if a string was numeric so that I could just use double.Parse("123") instead of the TryParse() method.

Why? Because it's annoying to have to declare an out variable and check the result of TryParse() before you know if the parse failed or not. I want to use the ternary operator to check if the string is numerical and then just parse it in the first ternary expression or provide a default value in the second ternary expression.

Like this:

var doubleValue = IsNumeric(numberAsString) ? double.Parse(numberAsString) : 0;

It's just a lot cleaner than:

var doubleValue = 0;
if (double.TryParse(numberAsString, out doubleValue)) {
    //whatever you want to do with doubleValue
}

I made a couple extension methods for these cases:

Extension method one

public static bool IsParseableAs<TInput>(this string value) {
    var type = typeof(TInput);

    var tryParseMethod = type.GetMethod("TryParse", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.Public, Type.DefaultBinder,
        new[] { typeof(string), type.MakeByRefType() }, null);
    if (tryParseMethod == null) return false;

    var arguments = new[] { value, Activator.CreateInstance(type) };
    return (bool) tryParseMethod.Invoke(null, arguments);
}

Example:

"123".IsParseableAs<double>() ? double.Parse(sNumber) : 0;

Because IsParseableAs() tries to parse the string as the appropriate type instead of just checking if the string is "numeric" it should be pretty safe. And you can even use it for non numeric types that have a TryParse() method, like DateTime.

The method uses reflection and you end up calling the TryParse() method twice which, of course, isn't as efficient, but not everything has to be fully optimized, sometimes convenience is just more important.

This method can also be used to easily parse a list of numeric strings into a list of double or some other type with a default value without having to catch any exceptions:

var sNumbers = new[] {"10", "20", "30"};
var dValues = sNumbers.Select(s => s.IsParseableAs<double>() ? double.Parse(s) : 0);