Strip a comma from a sensor value

Configuration
1

Hi,
I’m using the scrape sensor to bring in my current solar output and today’s peak from PVoutput.org.

When the Watts goes over 999, the number on the webpage gets a comma (eg 1,000 and over gets a comma). This is making HA interpret it as a string and not a number, and this is played out in my graphs which go to zero as soon as the value goes over 999.

Can I use a value template to strip out the comma? I’ve been doing some digging but haven’t found a way to do it.

Any ideas?

Here is my sensor code;

  - platform: scrape
    resource: "http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=38497&sid=35231"
    name: Solar
    select: '#dashPowerOut'
    unit_of_measurement: 'W'    

  - platform: scrape
    resource: "http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=38497&sid=35231"
    name: Solar Peak
    select: '#dashPowerPeak'
    unit_of_measurement: 'W'
2

ok, so I couldn’t wait so had a further dig into the jinja doco and found replace. (I didn’t realise jinja was a form of Python so figured python doco could help too).

Here’s the data_template I’ve used and it seems to work…

  - platform: scrape
    resource: "http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=38497&sid=35231"
    name: Solar
    select: '#dashPowerOut'
    unit_of_measurement: 'W'
    value_template: '{{ value.replace(",", "") }}'

If you have any other thoughts on a better way that would be appreciated…

Thx
JP

3 Likes
3

Thanks for following up with your solution, I will be using this in the future.

4

works for me too

5

I know it’s been a long time since you posted this, but its still helping people out in 2023.

The error message that I got (and eventually led me to your issue) was from
multiscrape in homeassistant. I got these errors:

numerical_value = float(value) # type:ignore[arg-type]
ValueError: could not convert string to float: ‘1,053.90’

It took me a while to figure out that it was the comma. Thanks so much for finding, and fixing your issue!
I hope anyone else getting those errors in Home Assistant will be able to find this and get help.

I really wish the developers who maintain the Convert String to Float would make their error message a bit more helpful. Instead of saying “could not convert”, they could have said "Could not convert because unexpected character ‘,’ found in string.