Formatting numeric values

When does numeric formatting take place?

Numeric formatting occurs when converting a number to a string with the USING operator, for example in a LET, DISPLAY or PRINT instruction, and when displaying numeric values in form fields defined with the FORMAT attribute.

Numeric values can be of type such as INTEGER, FLOAT, DECIMAL, MONEY, etc.

This example formats a DECIMAL(10,2) value with the USING operator:

MAIN
  DEFINE d DECIMAL(10,2)
  LET d = -123456.78
  DISPLAY d USING "-,---,--&.&& @"
END MAIN

 -123,456.78 E

Default formatting occurs when USING or FORMAT are not used, and a numeric value has to be converted to a character string, for example when passing a DECIMAL(p,s) to a function expecting a VARCHAR(n). For more details about default formatting, see Data type conversion reference.

This topic describes the syntax of the format-string in the USING "format-string" operator and FORMAT = "format-string" form field attribute.

Formatting symbols for numbers

When formatting numeric values, the format-string of the USING operator or FORMAT attribute consists of a set of place holders that represent digits, currency symbols, thousands and decimal separators. For example, "###.##@" defines three places to the left of the decimal point and exactly two to the right, plus a "back" currency symbol at the end of the string.

The format-string must use normalized placeholders described in Table 1. The placeholders will be replaced by digits, blanks or by the elements defined in the DBFORMAT (or DBMONEY) environment variables. Any other character will be interpreted as a literal, and can be used at any place in the format string.

The minus sign ( - ), plus sign ( + ), parentheses ( ( ) ), and dollar sign ( $ ) float. This means that when you specify multiple leading occurrences of one of these characters, the result string gets only a single character immediately to the left of the first digit.