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Thread: to_char(0,'9999.99') -> ".00"

to_char(0,'9999.99') -> ".00"

From
Phil Endecott
Date:
Dear All,

I was a bit surprised to find that

    to_char(0,'9999.99')

returns    .00 rather than 0.00.

Is this a bug or a feature?  How do I get what I want?

(This is with 7.4.2.  Appologies if it is a known problem.  The search
form in the list archives seems to split words on _, so looking for
to_char finds lots of pages that just say 'char'.)

Regards,

Phil Endecott.

Re: to_char(0,'9999.99') -> ".00"

From
Dave Smith
Date:
to_char(0,'9990.00')
?

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 22:48 +0000, Phil Endecott wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I was a bit surprised to find that
>
>     to_char(0,'9999.99')
>
> returns    .00 rather than 0.00.
>
> Is this a bug or a feature?  How do I get what I want?
>
> (This is with 7.4.2.  Appologies if it is a known problem.  The search
> form in the list archives seems to split words on _, so looking for
> to_char finds lots of pages that just say 'char'.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Phil Endecott.
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
>                http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
--
Dave Smith <dave.smith@candata.com>

Re: to_char(0,'9999.99') -> ".00"

From
Phil Endecott
Date:
I asked:
 >>    to_char(0,'9999.99')
 >>
 >>returns    .00 rather than 0.00.

Dave Smith replied:
> to_char(0,'9990.00')
> ?


Thanks Dave, that's embarrassingly obvious...

I note that the examples in the documentation don't have a 0 before the
decimal point, e.g. this one

to_char(148.5, 'FM999.990')    '148.500'

I imagine that in most cases people do want '0.000' rather than '.000',
so perhaps these examples should be changed to, in this case, 990.000.

Regards,

--Phil.