I'm trying to write something that checks if a string is a number or a negative. If it's a number (positive or negative) it will passed through int(). Unfortunately isdigit() won't recognize it as a number when "-" is included.

This is what I have so far:

def contestTest():
# Neutral point for struggle/tug of war/contest
x = 0while -5 < x < 5:print "Type desired amount of damage."print xchoice = raw_input("> ")if choice.isdigit():y = int(choice)x += yelse:print "Invalid input."if -5 >= x:print "x is low. Loss."print x
elif 5 <= x:print "x is high. Win."print x
else:print "Something went wrong."print x

The only solution I can think of is some separate, convoluted series of statements that I might squirrel away in a separate function to make it look nicer. I'd be grateful for any help!

You can easily remove the characters from the left first, like so:

choice.lstrip('-+').isdigit()

However it would probably be better to handle exceptions from invalid input instead:

print x
while True:choice = raw_input("> ")try:y = int(choice)breakexcept ValueError:print "Invalid input."
x += y