title: python robustly convert any string with units to float
body: <p>I would like to convert any string (a number with units) to a float. I have a list of values like </p>
  
  <pre><code>myList = ["$800", "0.1mm", "54.6%", "100,000,000", "89.6", "1,017.16%"]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And I would like to convert it to:</p>
  
  <pre><code>myList = [800.0, 0.1, 54.6, 100000000.0, 89.6, 1017.16]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And I would like to do this without using multiple replaces stacked together .replace("%","").replace(",","").replace(...)...</p>
  
  <p>I feel like there is a really easy pythonic solution...</p>