Better way to remove trailing zeros from an integer

Question

I'm an inexperienced programmer. I'm trying to remove trailing zeros from a whole number, an integer, for a project I've set myself in python.

I have managed to do this but there must be a better way than the monstrosity I have concocted!

def removeZeros(number):
    return int(str(int(str(number)[::-1]))[::-1])

Essentially I'm turning the integer into a string, reversing the string, turning it back into an integer---which removes the now leading zeros, turning it back into a string and reversing it; and finally turning it back into an integer to return it.

Any help would be appreciated.

You may want to look into the differences between floats and integers, that may help you get in the right direction. — miike3459, Oct 20 '18 at 16:59
Possible duplicate of [How to remove leading and trailing zeros in a string? Python](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13142347/how-to-remove-leading-and-trailing-zeros-in-a-string-python) — Syed Faizan, Oct 20 '18 at 17:02
are you sure that you want to remove trailing zero's from `integer`? not float? — BladeMight, Oct 20 '18 at 17:02
@BladeMight I definitely need integer, I'm storing the results as integer in sqlite and will calculate the value in money in python. The trailing zeros are the result of a calculation but are not needed. — sylph, Oct 20 '18 at 17:55

Eugene Yarmash · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-20T17:53:20.037

7

Just use str.rstrip():

def remove_zeros(number):
    return int(str(number).rstrip('0'))

You could also do it without converting the number to a string, which should be slightly faster:

def remove_zeros(number):
    while number % 10 == 0:
        number //= 10
    return number

edited Oct 20 '18 at 17:53

answered Oct 20 '18 at 17:00

Eugene Yarmash

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can you explain what is happening in your second example? – sylph Oct 20 '18 at 18:02
@sylph While the last digit of the number is `0` (checked with the [`%`](https://stackoverflow.com/q/4432208/244297) operator) we discard it by dividing the number by 10. – Eugene Yarmash Oct 20 '18 at 18:06
Thanks I just worked it out. I keep forgetting you can do `x //= 10` instead of `x = x / 10`. Need to do more studying! Very elegant solution by the way and perfect for what I need, thanks. – sylph Oct 20 '18 at 18:10
Just a quick note about @EugeneYarmash's comment: the operator `%` doesn't check what the last digit of a number is. It just computes the remainder of a division ie. `13 % 10` gives you `3` because `13 / 10 = 1 remainder 3`. It's just that in base 10, if a number is divisible by 10 then it ends with a `0`. – math2001 Oct 09 '19 at 02:45

Better way to remove trailing zeros from an integer

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