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Maintenance Ruby 3.4 gets fixes, but no new features. Switch to Ruby 4.0 →

instance method

String#to_f

() -> ::Float
to_f → float

Returns the result of interpreting leading characters in self as a Float:

Example
'3.14159'.to_f  # => 3.14159
'1.234e-2'.to_f # => 0.01234

Characters past a leading valid number (in the given base) are ignored:

Example
'3.14 (pi to two places)'.to_f # => 3.14

Returns zero if there is no leading valid number:

Example
'abcdef'.to_f # => 0.0
See also #to_c #to_i #swapcase! #to_r also in 4.1 · 4.0 · 3.3 · 3.2 · 3.1 · 3.0