I live in Brasil and decimal separators are commas. For a bunch of reasons, I use dots as decimal separators in SQL Server, which is different from Excel.
With that being said, I would like to know why the following query
select 1.0*5
is understood as text in Excel (if so), when copying and pasting, and dots are not converted to commas, while
select cast(1.0*5 as float)
is understood as float in Excel.
What is the type of result in the first query?
UPDATE
If the query were
select 1.1*5
the result of copy and paste in Excel cell would be 5.5. It is not possible to convert this to value in Excel.
While the second query would result in 5,5. I can use the use this value in Excel in an addition operation, for example.
If you're doing it directly IN Excel, it seems that your regional settings are not seeing that as an operation with a decimal, but rather text. If you change your regional settings to US, it would probably resolve it correctly.
The difference between the two is that you are literally telling the value to be cast differently than the default. So your regional setting is overridden.
Excel, as smart as it is, tends to make many assumptions that could be tied to any number of things. Sometimes you just have to deal with it.
In the end, your 2nd query is likely to produce better results.
Related
What do you avoid when creating and filling out a Excel spreadsheet of data for a SQL database (certain formats, characters, character length issues?)
2.Does it matter how dates are formatted?
VARCHAR or INTEGER errors you've seen?
Finally, what SQL or Python queries did you use to address errors you found that you might have shared for questions 1-3?
The easiest way would be, if you can import Database-EDI (e.g. Oracle SQL Developer) a TXT- or CSV-Excel-Export into our Database.
→ Depending on the database, different requirements must be observed.
The main focus is on the correct formatting with regard to the country settings (Excel & database):
Excel-Format-Date YYYY-M-DD HH24:MM / Databe-Timestamp YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MM:SS.FFFF
→ That would not work
In addition, make sure that Excel does not cut any numbers:
Excel-Format-Long-Number 89632150000 (orignal 896321512345 )
→ Excel automatically shortens the number in the standard settings.
The length of a text must not exceed the specified maximum length in the assigned column of the type (VARCHAR).
I think these would be the main points to look out for.
I am using MS query to pull data from sql server and all is good.
Problem starts when data comes from the server I am stuck with data type general for everything, and no way to change the data type in excel.
Main issue is numbers, where in database datatype is decimal yet i can do no calculations on it in excel. Any help would be appreciated.
I am using excel to execute a stored procedure on server
This pulls the data into the following table
Even though the data in the sql server for column price is formatted as decimal it becomes a general data type after getting to excel.
Changing it to number/currency etc. does not change anything.
Also no errors appear. Simply data comes down and no matter what changes in excel I apply nothing changes it all is treated as text.
You can do these things.
Select Column
Click Data-> Text to Columns
Follow the wizard
Set the format
Use this official support ticket from Microsoft
Problem in this case was created by myself.
But I suppose it could easily happen to others who are just starting on their path with sql and excel.
Here is what happened as I established after few days of going in circles.
as there was load of trailing spaces in the data coming down from the server I have decided to tidy things up.
Without considerring implications I have stuck an RTRIM() on everything.
This caused excel to treat everything as strings as string RTRIM is a built in string function.
What made things worse is the fact that when using power query I was able to transform the data to the desired, formats.
Unfortunately MS query does not seem to be quite as clever as power query hence the issues.
Is there a way for a number to stay as a number and not a string even with the percent sign?
The reason I write a function in a query like:
Format(IIf([BDE MTOE CURRENT]=0,0,[PROJECTED OH]/[BDE MTOE CURRENT]),"Percent")
is so that I can output a complete report without having to do anything to it.
Microsoft Access (My version is 2007) changes it to a string.
You do not need to format the number in the SQL query. There is a formatting option for the values in Access reports:
If you are exporting the data to Excel there is a similar option for the Excel cells.
The bottomline is: numbers should stay numbers. That way they are better manageable: you can sort them, you can apply mathematical operations on them
Agreed. I have decided to keep numbers as decimals and will format the spreadsheet columns into percentage from MS Access using VBA. I kinda hoped I could do it all from SQL.
Excel 2007 - anytime I click AutoSum it shows 0, or anytime I use the formula to Sum it still gives me a 0.
This is a SQL Query that is imported by using Data-Connection-SQL Server and saved SQL Query in the workbook.
What gives that is keeping me from totalling?
It seems to me the most likely explanation is that what you are trying to add are strings. If so, with Error Checking activated (Formulas tab) little triangles (by default green) should be clear evidence.
These also provide an easy way to convert strings that look like numbers into numbers that Excel can add. Select a contiguous range starting with a cell requiring conversion and a warning sign should appear:
(not always top left). Click on the exclamation mark and on Convert to Number and hopefully the format of all cells in your selection will be converted so your SUM function behave as you would like.
Much less likely (because I don't see how you would have done) is that somehow you have acquired leading spaces and when entering data it was into a cell formatted as Text. The triangle warning would be the same but Number Stored as Text does no conversion. A formula such as:
=TRIM(A1)
should do however, though it does depend on the type of space (eg would not work for NBSP - though you should not acquire one of those from an SQL import).
There may be other possible causes but it seems best to try the above before alternatives.
My office uses excel to prepare our data before importing it into a SQL database. However, we have been expreiencing the following error.
When the data is imported from one computer it loses all of the leading zeros. However, when it is imported from a different computer it imports perfectly.
An example of the leading zeros are that our item numbers are required to be formatted as "001, 002, 003,... 010, 011, 012,... 100, 101, 102, ect".
1) The excel file is stored on a server so there is no difference in the file.
2) If the users swap workstations the result stays with the computer, and doesn't switch with the user.
3) The data is formatted as text. It has been formatted as text both from the Data Tab and from Format Cells.
Is there a setting within excel that is specific to the computer and not the spreadsheet which will affect exporting the data? Or is there a non-excel specific setting which will cause this?
Its best to avoid the 'TEXT' format option. Confusingly, it does not force the contents of a cell to be a text data type, and it wreaks havoc when a formula references a 'TEXT' format.
To add to the previous answer (with all of the caveats about if this is a good idea), you can use the TEXT worksheet function
=TEXT(A1,"000")
to guarantee an actual text string with leading zeros if needed.
Depending on number of leading zeroes that you require, you can select your data/column in Excel, go into Excel >> Format >> Custom >> type in however many zeroes you require into the Type field (i.e. 000000000 for a 9-digit number with leading zeroes), and it will automatically preface with the correct number of leading zeroes to make the numerical string the correct length (i.e. 4000 = 00004000).
Note, this only works with numerical data, not text, but depending on the scenario it may be more useful to retain your data in numerical format - the example you gave listed numerical data only, and often retaining the numerical format is a benefit for analysis.
Not sure what the benefit of padding data before inserting it into the database would be...(takes more space, slower searching, etc.). Sounds like you're formatting it for output (?), which might be more efficiently done elsewhere.
But anyway -- here are some ideas for your SELECT (sql) statement:
RIGHT(1000 + [excel field], 3)
or another one would be
REPLICATE('0', 3 - LEN([excel field])) + [excel field]
Something you can do to the Excel field itself (before import) is prefix it with a ' (apostrophe). Notice if you type 0007 into Excel, it will change it to 7, but if you type '0007, it will keep the leading zeros.