title: Splitting a string where it switches between numeric and alphabetic characters
body: <p>I am parsing some data where the standard format is something like <code>10 pizzas</code>. Sometimes, data is input correctly and we might end up with <code>5pizzas</code> instead of <code>5 pizzas</code>.  In this scenario, I want to parse out the number of pizzas.</p>
  
  <p>The naïve way of doing this would be to check character by character, building up a string until we reach a non-digit and then casting that string as an integer.</p>
  
  <pre><code>num_pizzas = ""
  for character in data_input:
     if character.isdigit():
        num_pizzas += character
     else:
        break
  num_pizzas = int(num_pizzas)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is pretty clunky, though.  Is there an easier way to split a string where it switches from numeric digits to alphabetic characters?</p>