Extract Numbers from Text

In short Extracting numbers finds every number in a block of text and returns them as a list, with a total and an average, and with options for whether decimals and negative signs count as part of the number. Those options are not cosmetic. "−12.5" is one number if the minus sign and the decimal point are included and three separate things if they are not, and the total changes accordingly. The usual jobs are pulling figures out of a report or an email to add up, extracting prices or quantities from a pasted table, and getting a column back from text that lost its structure. A few cases need care. A thousands separator splits a number in two under the default rules, so "1,250" becomes 1 and 250 — check whether your text uses commas or spaces for grouping before trusting the total. Dates give three numbers each. Phone numbers and reference codes are extracted as numbers even though they are identifiers that should never be summed, which is worth looking at before reading the total as meaningful.