title: Converting human number string to float in ruby or rails
body: <p>I searched for a while for a ruby or rails method that I can call to convert a simple string like <code>1,000.53</code> into a float value but I couldn't.</p>
  
  <p>All I could see is number_to_human which does the reverse of what I want. Is there anything available for my use case or am I alone (which I dont think). Also all I want is a simple conversion as above with commas and dot. No fancy currency or other any other notation conversion needed.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>
  
  <p>EDIT</p>
  
  <p><code>'1,000.5'.gsub(/,/, '').to_f</code> works but I am looking for an already available method in ruby or rails. Or a better alternative to my solution with gsub.</p>