Convert fields containing exponential values to decimal

sjordery · Post by **sjordery** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:46 am

Hi all,
Please give me a solution regarding this.

I have a file containg values as below

real_daily_return
--------------------
-5.41114562-e05
-4.98887625-e03
---------------------

I want to convert this data having double data type to data having decimal datatype.

This works fine for those numbers with an exponent less than 5 e.g. -1.09909222273045E-03.

Those with an exponent of 5 remain unconverted e.g. -5.41150924939712E-05

So can you suggest me what is the problem here.

DSguru2B · Post by **DSguru2B** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:30 am

How are you converting them to decimal, as in what function are you using?
What is the precision and scale of your target decimal field?

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:57 pm

They ARE converted; the View Data mechanism converts them back to scientific notation if they are very small or very large.

Try writing to a database table with the column specified as Decimal with sufficiently large precision and scale.

When writing to a text file (recall that text files don't have data types, only text) try experimenting with the precision and scale figures. However, I believe there's an inbuilt rule to convert to scientific notation when there are four or more zeroes immediately following the decimal place.

sjordery · Post by **sjordery** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 11:41 pm

Hi,

Both my source and target is sequential file.
For the source I have defined that partucular column as double
and
for the target I have defined that column as decimal.
up to 4 th exponential it is working fine.

Ray,

Can you suggest me for more than 4th exponential what scentific notation I should use here.
Is it applicable for both sequential file and database table.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 2:07 am

No. Read my third paragraph again.

sjordery · Post by **sjordery** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:20 am

ray,
I have played with the precession and scale figures but I didnt get the result.
any idea??

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 2:26 pm

ray.wurlod wrote:I believe there's an inbuilt rule to convert to scientific notation when there are four or more zeroes immediately following the decimal place.

What part of that was unclear?