You could use %g to achieve this:

'%g'%(3.140)

or, with Python ≥ 2.6:

'{0:g}'.format(3.140)

or, with Python ≥ 3.6:

f'{3.140:g}'

From the docs for format: g causes (among other things)

insignificant trailing zeros [to be] removed from the significand, and the decimal point is also removed if there are no remaining digits following it.

Updated Generalized to maintain precision and handle unseen values:

import decimal
import random

def format_number(num):
    try:
        dec = decimal.Decimal(num)
    except:
        return 'bad'
    tup = dec.as_tuple()
    delta = len(tup.digits) + tup.exponent
    digits = ''.join(str(d) for d in tup.digits)
    if delta <= 0:
        zeros = abs(tup.exponent) - len(tup.digits)
        val = '0.' + ('0'*zeros) + digits
    else:
        val = digits[:delta] + ('0'*tup.exponent) + '.' + digits[delta:]
    val = val.rstrip('0')
    if val[-1] == '.':
        val = val[:-1]
    if tup.sign:
        return '-' + val
    return val

# test data
NUMS = '''
    0.0000      0
    0           0
    123.45000   123.45
    0000        0
    123.4506780 123.450678
    0.1         0.1
    0.001       0.001
    0.005000    0.005
    .1234       0.1234
    1.23e1      12.3
    -123.456    -123.456
    4.98e10     49800000000
    4.9815135   4.9815135
    4e30        4000000000000000000000000000000
    -0.0000000000004 -0.0000000000004
    -.4e-12     -0.0000000000004
    -0.11112    -0.11112
    1.3.4.5     bad
    -1.2.3      bad
'''

for num, exp in [s.split() for s in NUMS.split('\n') if s]:
    res = format_number(num)
    print res
    assert exp == res

Output:

0
0
123.45
0
123.450678
0.1
0.001
0.005
0.1234
12.3
-123.456
49800000000
4.9815135
4000000000000000000000000000000
-0.0000000000004
-0.0000000000004
-0.11112
bad
bad

You can keep the zeros by formatting the output:

eg: if the output is 0.96,

x= 0.96
"{0:.4f}".format(x)

Output:

'0.9600'

The output will be a string though..

The below article might be a good read: https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/floatingpoint.html

It explains why Python displays floats in the above format.

You can use the normalize method to remove extra precision.

>>> print decimal.Decimal('5.500')
5.500
>>> print decimal.Decimal('5.500').normalize()
5.5

To avoid stripping zeros to the left of the decimal point, you could do this:

def normalize_fraction(d):
    normalized = d.normalize()
    sign, digits, exponent = normalized.as_tuple()
    if exponent > 0:
        return decimal.Decimal((sign, digits + (0,) * exponent, 0))
    else:
        return normalized

Or more compactly, using quantize as suggested by user7116:

def normalize_fraction(d):
    normalized = d.normalize()
    sign, digit, exponent = normalized.as_tuple()
    return normalized if exponent <= 0 else normalized.quantize(1)

You could also use to_integral() as shown here but I think using as_tuple this way is more self-documenting.

I tested these both against a few cases; please leave a comment if you find something that doesn't work.

>>> normalize_fraction(decimal.Decimal('55.5'))
Decimal('55.5')
>>> normalize_fraction(decimal.Decimal('55.500'))
Decimal('55.5')
>>> normalize_fraction(decimal.Decimal('55500'))
Decimal('55500')
>>> normalize_fraction(decimal.Decimal('555E2'))
Decimal('55500')