def _isfloat(x):
    try:
        float(x)
    except:
        return False

    return True

##def _phi(p):
##    """returns the pth quantile inverse norm"""
##    return scipy.stats.norm.isf(p)
returns True if x is a float,
dataset/ETHPy150Open statsmodels/statsmodels/statsmodels/stats/libqsturng/qsturng_.py/_isfloat