JavaScript parseFloat() function explained with examples

The JavaScript parseFloat() function is a built-in function that returns a floating-point number from the given string argument.

The function allows you to extract a number from a string as shown below:

console.log(parseFloat("12.57.a ")); // 12.57

When a number can’t be parsed from the argument, a NaN will be returned by the function:

console.log(parseFloat("abc ")); // NaN

The parseFloat() function can’t adjust the number of digits for the decimal point.

When you need a certain amount of decimal point digits, you need to use the toFixed() method.

For example, suppose you only want 2 decimal point digits out of the string number. Here’s how you do it:

let string = "37.5930"
let float = parseFloat(string);
let fixedFloatString = float.toFixed(2); // "37.59"
let fixedFloat = parseFloat(fixedFloatString);

console.log(fixedFloat); // 37.59

The parseFloat() function is called two times because the toFixed() method returns a string representing the number where you call the function from.

If you don’t need a number type representation of the number, you can omit the last parseFloat() function call.

Use isNaN() to check the returned value of parseFloat()

Finally, the parseFloat() function returns a NaN when the given argument has no valid number representation.

Since a NaN isn’t a useful value, you might want to replace it with 0 in some cases.

Consider the following example code:

function multiplyByTwo(x) {
  if (isNaN(parseFloat(x))) {
    x = 0
  }
  return parseFloat(x) * 2;
}

console.log(multiplyByTwo("abc")) // 0

console.log(multiplyByTwo("3.21`")) // 6.42

When the value of parseFloat(x) is NaN, the x variable will be replaced with 0 instead.

This way, the calculation of parseFloat(x) * 2 will always return a number 0 in place of NaN.

Now you’ve learned how the parseFloat() function works in JavaScript. Good work! 😉

Use isNaN() to check the returned value of parseFloat()

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