Python beginner. I don't know how to solve this error occurred with the code below:TypeError: '>' not supported between instances of 'str' and 'float'

I’m following the tutorial on YouTube called Python programming for Finance. I’ve checked multiple times if I’ve wrote the same code of the YouTuber but I couldn’t find any error on the transcription. Could you help me in finding the error?

def buy_sell_hold(*args): 
    cols = [c for c in args]
    requirement = 0.02
    for col in cols:
        if col > requirement:
            return 1
        if col < -requirement:
            return -1
    return 0
   
    


def extract_featuresets(ticker):
    tickers, df = process_data_for_labels(ticker)
    
#    df['{}_target'.format(ticker)] = list(map(buy_sell_hold,df[[c for c in df.columns if c not in tickers]].values))
    df['{}_target'.format(ticker)] = list(map(buy_sell_hold, 
                                              df['{}_1d'.format(ticker)],
                                              df['{}_2d'.format(ticker)],
                                              df['{}_3d'.format(ticker)],
                                              df['{}_4d'.format(ticker)],
                                              df['{}_5d'.format(ticker)],
                                              df['{}_6d'.format(ticker)],
                                              df['{}_7d'.format(ticker)]))
    vals = df['{}_target'.format(ticker)].values.tolist()
    str_vals = [str(i) for i in vals]
    print('Data spread:', Counter(str_vals))  
    
    df.fillna(0,inplace=True)
    
    df=df.replace([np.inf,-np.inf], np.nan)
    df.dropna(inplace=True)
    
    df_vals = df[[ticker for ticker in tickers]].pct_change()
    df_vals = df_vals.replace([np.inf,-np.inf], 0)
    df_vals.fillna(0,inplace=True)
    
    X = df_vals.values
    Y = df['{}_target'.format(ticker)].values
    
    return X,Y, df

extract_featuresets('AAPL')

this is the error if col > requirement:

TypeError: ‘>’ not supported between instances of ‘str’ and ‘float’

>Solution :

Well your doing a comparison between two differents types : A string and a Float.

You can convert the string variable using :

number = float(string)

So i your case :

def buy_sell_hold(*args): 
    cols = [c for c in args]
    requirement = 0.02
    for col in cols:
        if float(col) > requirement:
            return 1
        if float(col) < -requirement:
            return -1
    return 0

But make sure that the args only contains float or add a try catch around the conditions.