Convert exponential to number in sql - sql

Question

I have a large amount of card tokens (16 digits) uploaded from xml file to sql-server. The problem is I see them as expression, sample below:
3.3733E+15
3.3737E+15
3.3737E+15
3.3737E+15
3.37391E+15
3.37391E+15
3.37398E+15
3.37453E+15
3.37468E+15
3.37468E+15
3.3747E+15
3.37486E+15
3.37486E+15
3.37567E+15
3.3759E+15
3.3759E+15
Any suggestion to change them to a 16 digit number? I have tried to change the data type, but got error"Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '3.37201E+15' to data type int"
Thanks for help!
Edit:
#X.L.Ant see my code below. I create this table from another one, which is just purely inserted from xml file. Is this may cause an error because some rows are empty in column TOKEN?
CREATE TABLE MULTICURRENCY_CHECK
(
TOKEN varchar(255)
)
/*Merges all card tokens into 1 column, as in xml they are spread across different columns*/
INSERT INTO MULTICURRENCY_CHECK
(
TOKEN
)
SELECT no FROM gpstransactionsnew2
UNION ALL
SELECT no19 FROM gpstransactionsnew2
UNION ALL
SELECT no68 FROM gpstransactionsnew2
UNION ALL
SELECT no93 FROM gpstransactionsnew2
UNION ALL
SELECT no107 FROM gpstransactionsnew2
UNION ALL
SELECT no121 FROM gpstransactionsnew2
SELECT REPLACE(TOKEN, 'OW1', ' ')
FROM MULTICURRENCY_CHECK
/*Converts exponential expression to number*/
SELECT CONVERT(numeric(16,0), CAST(TOKEN AS FLOAT))
FROM MULTICURRENCY_CHECK

Answer 1

Try to cast your string to float before converting it :
SELECT CONVERT(numeric(16,0), CAST(TOKEN AS FLOAT))
FROM MULTICURRENCY_CHECK
See this fiddle.
I don't know what's the format of those numbers in your XML source, but with the data you provide, you'll end up with 33733 for instance followed by a bunch of zeroes. If you have a bigger precision in your XML, maybe you should tweak your importing settings to keep this precision instead of trying to deal with that in the DB.
EDIT:
Try testing your strings with ISNUMERIC to avoid the casting errors you're getting. Adding a raw output of your column will allow you to check which value fails to convert (i.e. converts to 0).
SELECT TOKEN,
CONVERT(NUMERIC(16, 0), CAST(CASE
WHEN ISNUMERIC(TOKEN) = 1
THEN TOKEN
ELSE 0
END AS FLOAT))
FROM MULTICURRENCY_CHECK

Answer 2

For SQL Server 2012+, use TRY_CONVERT().
The use of ISNUMERIC() in xlecoustillier's edited answer does not protect against conversion failures.
Given the following scenario:
CREATE TABLE test(a varchar(100));
insert into test values ('3.3733E+15'),
('3.3737E+15'),
('3.37391E+30'), --fails conversion. included to demonstrate the nature of TRY_CONVERT().
('3.37398E+15'),
('3.37453E+15'),
('3.37468E+15'),
('3.3747E+15'),
('3.37486E+15'),
('3.37567E+15'),
('3.3759E+15');
SELECT TRY_CONVERT(numeric(16,0), CAST(a AS FLOAT))
FROM test
Results in only valid converted values:
---------------------------------------
3373300000000000
NULL
3373910000000000
3373980000000000
3374530000000000
3374680000000000
3374700000000000
3374860000000000
3375670000000000
3375900000000000
However:
SELECT a,
CONVERT(NUMERIC(16, 0), CAST(CASE
WHEN ISNUMERIC(a) = 1
THEN a
ELSE 0
END AS FLOAT))
FROM test
Fails with:
Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '3.3733E+15' to
data type int.
The issue is that all values in the 'a' column return 1 when passed to the ISNUMERIC() function.
SELECT CASE WHEN ISNUMERIC(a) = 1 THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END as IsValueNumeric
FROM test
Try it on SQLFiddle and/or compare with xlecoustillier's sqlfiddle

Answer 3

SELECT colmn_name || '' FROM table_name
This should work.