Remove leading zeros up to "0.xx"

[Thomas Kennedy]

Given a String like "000864.50", how can I strip off the leading zeros except if it's the last character before the decimal? The strings will always end in a decimal place and two digits.

So:

000756.90 becomes 756.90, and 0000070.50 should become 70.50

It seems like I want to do two things:
1. replace all instances of "00." with "0.", recursively, in case it's all leading zeros, and
2. remove all zeros that occur before a pattern that begins with a non-zero digit and ends with a decimal

[Don Redd]

System.out.println(String.format("%.2f",Float.valueOf("000001.20")));

[Thomas Kennedy]

Thank you!

[fred rosenberger]

I don't see how that removes them from the string. All that does is use a format mask to print the string without them...but they are still there.

[Paul Clapham]

Well, String is immutable so you can't change it in any way. So what's really needed is a way of producing a new string with the desired characteristics. And that's what Don Redd's code does (I suppose -- haven't checked it). Of course in real life you would assign the result of that expression to a variable rather than just printing it, which wasn't what was asked for.

[fred rosenberger]

I get all that...

My veiled point was that the solution given didn't really solve the problem as stated...The OP really needs to clarify what they want, if nothing else as an exercise in writing clear specs.