import re p = re.compile("([0-9]+\\.[0-9]+[eE]-[0-9]+)[ \t\r\n]*$") m = 0 fd = open("out.txt","r") for c in fd: g = p.search(c) if g: x=eval(g.group(1)) #if x > m: #print c, m=max(m,x) print m*1e9