# Scientific notation not recognized?

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/scientific-notation-not-recognized/7678>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [December 7, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/scientific-notation-not-recognized/7678 "2013-12-07T22:43:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RossStewart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/edb3f5/32.png) [@RossStewart](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/RossStewart)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/scientific-notation-not-recognized/7678/1 "2013-12-07T22:43:17Z")

</div>

This is a sample string being recieved using TCP driver.

D000,SV009A0000042,2013-12-07,15:35:40,C1,2,1,1,6,3,1.124259e+02,-1.242590e+01,1.242590e+01,0.000000e+00,0.00,1.000000e+02,0.000000e+00,0083,1C5D

I can parse out the scientific numbers but cant get them to display properly,

IE  
-1.242590e+01 is interpreted as -1.242590…

Is the lowercase e the problem? is there some formatting possible?

Thx again.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![markdobtech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@markdobtech](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/markdobtech)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/scientific-notation-not-recognized/7678/2 "2013-12-08T15:04:23Z")

</div>

Convert it to a float.

```auto
x = float('-1.242590e+01')
print x
print 'Formatted decimal place example %.6f' % (x)
```