In PostgreSQL, I have a column with people's height in meters. If the height is, say 1.75 m, it shows properly, but if the height is 1.70 m, it shows as 1.7. I would like to have this already formatted to two decimal places, showing as 1.70 without formatting in each and every SQL call. Can I specify this in the table creation? Or a stored procedure, or something? I've seen a few things about timestamps, but not for real fields. Knowing how to format the decimal point as a colon (1,70) would be a plus.
Basically, presentation and "cosmetics" are the job of the application, not the database.
Having a default number of decimal places for floats would also create a problem, because the data returned by the database would not be the actual data in the column. So if you did a SELECT and it returned a value of 1.75, then if you searched for this value, you might not find it because the actual value stored was not 1.75 but 1.7499999999 and it was only rounded for display.
Potential solutions:
If you want to store a specified number of digits, use NUMERIC. This will solve the 1.7499999999 problem above. If you use NUMERIC, when doing a SELECT you get the actual contents of the column.
In your app, if you use an ORM, use a Decimal (or similar) type for the column with the appropriate settings so it displays the way you want.
Or create a view with the format applied to the column, but in this case if you want the trailing zero, the type will be text and not float, and it will not be searchable unless you create an extra index on it.
Generated column with the number formatted as you want, maybe easier than a view
I have some samples I need to take.
In order to create a good identifier/serial number for the samples, I want it to be a product of its characteristics.
For example, if the sample was taken from India and the temperature was 40 degrees then I would click dropdowns in the form to create those two entries and then a serial number would be spat out in the form "Ind40".
Assuming that your form is bound to a table, you can create a calculated column in the table that concatenates the values from other columns into a single value.
For instance, create a new column and give it a name (for example, SerialNbr). Then for Data Type select "Calculated". An expression builder window will appear:
Enter the columns you'd like to concatenate and separate them with &. Here is an example of how the expression could look:
Left([Country],3) & [Temperature]
This expression takes the first 3 chars from the Country column and combines it with the value from Temperature column to create the value in column SerialNbr. The calculated column will automatically update when values are entered into the other fields. I'd also suggest adding another value to the calculated expression to help avoid duplicates, such as date/time of submission.
Say I have a field [Client] which is either Yes/No
Then I Sum on [NumberOfAccounts]
But on my map I want a string that says "Clients: 23 Prospects: 11 Total: 33"
How do I do that with a calculated field??
Assuming you have one record, i.e. row of data per account, and an account is either a client or prospect depending on the value of the [Client] field. Further recommend you change Client to a Boolean valued field, taking on either True or False, instead of using a string, and finally assuming you rename the field [Client?]
Give all that, you define a calculated field called [Clients] as
INT([Client?])
And then you can put SUM([Clients]) on the Text/Label shelf to get the number of clients.
Likewise, you can define a calculated field called [Prospects] as
INT(NOT [Client?])
And also put SUM([Prospects]) on the Text/Label shelf.
This works because the type conversion function INT() converts True to 1 and False to 0. Then the SUM() function effectively counts the number of records that satisfy the Boolean condition.
Finally, also add SUM([Number of Records]) to Text/Label.
Once the measures are included in text or label, you can edit the label text by clicking on the Text/Label button on the marks card to add the surrounding strings.
BTW, The button is called either Text or Label depending on your choice of mark type.
I am trying to find a way to round a field in SSRS to a dynamic number of decimal places. I know I can format it dynamically, and it may eventually come to that, but many of my users are going to take this report directly to Excel and are going to want to have actual numeric fields.
My t-SQL code includes these declared variables:
NumLong01 DECIMAL(23,8)
, NumLongDP01 INTEGER
The first set of entries in this table is for headers and rounding parameters. So I add values for these two as:
NULL
,4
and then I add the actual table values as:
543210987654321.87654321
,NULL
That way I can put a whole series of numbers into the table but they all have to be formatted the same way.
Running this query yields:
When I go to ReportBuilder, my field has this expression:
=Fields!NumLong01.Value
If I want to format a certain number of decimal places, I can just do this:
=Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,2) or some such. What I tried to do, though, was to make it dynamic:
=Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,First(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1"))
This ended up rounding to 0 decimal places. I subsequently learned--by just using the second half in my field--that this was a NULL value. So I tried Sum instead of First--again, just in my field--and got the 4 that I expected. Great, so now I had my number, and I just put that in as my rounding:
=Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1"))
Only problem is, this yields an error. Next I asked myself if maybe it wasn't seeing this as a number for some reason. So i just added it onto my field. No problems. So I really don't know what it's doing. Is it thinking that this field might become so long that it will round to an illegal number of decimals places?
Now, I can do this:
=IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 8,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,8),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 7,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,7),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 6,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,6),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 5,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,5),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 4,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,4),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 3,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,3),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 2,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,2),IIf(Sum(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1") = 1,Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,1),Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,0)))))))))
...and that works. But it seems like such a ridiculous way to go about it.
I'm also comfortable passing only rounded numbers out of t-SQL. But then I run into the problem of showing only a certain number of decimals on the report, because in the number formatting it doesn't allow for a dynamic number of decimal places for some reason.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
This isn't an exhaustive list of ways to accomplish dynamic rounding or number formatting as you can achieve this using custom code in the report or by adapting your dataset's SQL query.
Using Rounding:
The first set of entries in this table is for headers and rounding parameters. That way I can put a whole series of numbers into the table but they all have to be formatted the same way.
To avoid building expressions in your report that require aggregate functions such First and Sum and generating a blank row that you then have to remove, consider just entering the number of decimal places for every row instead of using a header row. The costs (storage and expression evaluation) are low even if it seems redundant.
This means that instead of using: =Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,First(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1")) you can use =Round(Fields!NumLong01.Value,Fields!NumLongDP01.Value) either as an expression or as a calculated field in DataSet1 or whatever your dataset is called.
Using Number Formatting:
But then I run into the problem of showing only a certain number of decimals on the report, because in the number formatting it doesn't allow for a dynamic number of decimal places for some reason.
You can define custom formatting for the NumLong01 field in the report and make it dynamic using an expression to build your custom formatting string.
Open the Text Box Properties for the NumLong01 textbox or tablix field
Open Number tab and select Custom from the Category list
Click the fx button and use the following expression ="0." + StrDup(First(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1"), "0")
Using your example data, this expression would produce the custom formatting string 0.0000 which changes 543210987654321.87654321 to 543210987654321.8765. For your information, StrDup duplicates the specified string X number of times.
In cases where the fractional part of the number is less than the decimal precision required, this formatting string will pad it with 0s. If that's not desired, change the string to be duplicated to "#" like so: StrDup(First(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "DataSet1"), "#").
You can also use this method as a calculated field in the dataset but only if you have removed the header row and are entering the decimal places for every row as mentioned earlier. This is because you can't use the aggregate function in the calculated field expression.
To do this, add a calculated field to your dataset with the expression: =Format(Fields!NumLong01.Value, "0." + StrDup(Fields!NumLongDP01.Value, "0"))
I have a column of decimal (5,5). I want to put default value as "+000.00000". I tried with several options such in meta data such as setting precision=5 or using the option "Packed to no(separate)", setting sign position=leading, but all I am getting value as "+000000". How can I correct this?