RE: Exponential puzzler
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:32:47 -0000
Message-ID: <F1A191B056E5E04EA2134D842F9396F82961253D_at_sunmsx01.Corp.Acxiom.net>
Thanks for all the responses folks, it would appear I misinterpreted the requirements and they merely wanted to take the text version and put it into a number column so to_number is absolutely fine J
Cheers
Lee
From: Stephane Faroult [mailto:sfaroult_at_roughsea.com]
Sent: 27 February 2012 13:38
To: Robertson Lee - lerobe
Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: Exponential puzzler
On 02/27/2012 02:06 PM, Robertson Lee - lerobe wrote:
Guys,
Anyone had to convert an exponential number to a proper decimal number ?
Ive got a varchar2 field which holds an exponential number as a string and need to get it out as a real number....
e.g
select popularity from lee1;
returns
8.912655903259292E-5
I would have thought a simple
select to_number(popularity) from lee1;
would work but it returns exactly the same.
I know I can format it in SQL*Plus but this is actually part of an application and I need to update a table with the numeric value of the exponential string.
TIA Lee
Lee,
Don't mistake the representation and the actual value. Once you have applied "to_number()", it has become a number, and therefore you have what you need for your update. If you want to *show* it differently, then it's a pure formatting (and conversion to varchar2) question. It's exactly the same story as with dates - even if a date doesn't display the way you want, it doesn't mean that inside Oracle it's not what it should be.
The exponential notation is just the best way to maximize the information displayed while minimizing the number of digits ...
HTH,
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Stephane Faroult
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Received on Mon Feb 27 2012 - 10:32:47 CST