Tip of the Month (June 2006)

Controlling the Decimal Digits Displayed by a Calculated Control

Normally, calculated controls display 6 digits to the right of the decimal point. If you turn on the "Money" property, it is rounded to 2 decimal places.

But say you wanted to display 1, 3, 4, or 5 decimal places for a floating point value. You can do this by using the following expressions (assuming the floating point value is stored in variable 88):

• 1 decimal place: @left(@round(@var(88),1), @length(@var(88))-5)
• 2 decimal places: (use Money datatype)
• 3 decimal places: @left(@round(@var(88),3), @length(@var(88))-3)
• 4 decimal places: @left(@round(@var(88),4), @length(@var(88))-2)
• 5 decimal places: @left(@round(@var(88),5), @length(@var(88))-1)
• 6 decimal places: (default for Float datatype)

Thanks to Scott Denton of Denton Software Solutions, Inc. for this month's tip.

(also see the August 2001 tip of the month)