I'm parsing through data, and I need to be able to identify numbers. I'm not real good with RegEx, so I thought I'd try something different and easy.
First, this REGEX pattern seems to work for me: ^[-+]?\d+(\.\d+)?$ -- I can use Google.
But now I'd like to know why my alternative method doesn't work:

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." - Lord Peter Wimsey