Re: Can TO_NUMBER Do This?

From: <nlzanen1_at_ey.nl>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 21:59:37 +0200
Message-Id: <10602.115673@fatcity.com>

Try a combination of replace and to_number

to_number(replace(<column>,'()')) (of the top of my head)

jack

Ed Bittel <ebittel_at_yahoo.com>@fatcity.com on 08/28/2000 09:26:27 PM

Please respond to ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com

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To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> cc:
Subject: Can TO_NUMBER Do This?

Against the repeated urging of the DBA (me), a developer insisted on creating all the numeric columns of his new appliction's tables as VARCHAR2. (Don't ask me why! I've explained it to him several times to no avail.)

Problem

Negative values are represented in the tables with parenthesis
(e.g., '(34,989.89)'). He needs to convert these character
values to numeric so he can do some math.

I know you can parenthesize values when doing a TO_CHAR like this:

select to_char(f1,'999D99PR') from test where f1=-123.45

TO_CHAR(

<123.45>

However, if this doesn't appear to work with the to_number function, at least in my case.

Any ideas how to convert at string like '(1,234.87)' to a numeric value?

-Ed

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Received on Mon Aug 28 2000 - 14:59:37 CDT