method to parse a float (#754)

Author: pjfanning

src/main/java/com/fasterxml/jackson/core/io/NumberInput.java

@@ -306,6 +306,16 @@ public static double parseDouble(String s) throws NumberFormatException {
         return Double.parseDouble(s);
     }
 
+    /**
+     * @param s a string representing a number to parse
+     * @return closest matching float
+     * @throws NumberFormatException if string cannot be represented by a float
+     * @since v2.14
+     */
+    public static float parseFloat(String s) throws NumberFormatException {
+        return Float.parseFloat(s);
+    }
+
     public static BigDecimal parseBigDecimal(String s) throws NumberFormatException {
         return BigDecimalParser.parse(s);
     }

src/test/java/com/fasterxml/jackson/core/io/TestNumberInput.java

@@ -10,5 +10,12 @@ public void testNastySmallDouble()
         final String nastySmallDouble = "2.2250738585072012e-308";
         assertEquals(Double.parseDouble(nastySmallDouble), NumberInput.parseDouble(nastySmallDouble));
     }
+
+    public void testParseFloat()
+    {
+        final String exampleFloat = "1.199999988079071";
+        assertEquals(1.1999999f, NumberInput.parseFloat(exampleFloat));
+        assertEquals(1.2f, (float)NumberInput.parseDouble(exampleFloat));
+    }
 }