data conversion

[junkmail]

Can someone tell me how to convert a varchar to a real number? everything I tried gives me the same error that you can't convert a varchar to real.

 

[jbenson001]

What have you tried so far?
How about:

SELECT CAST('123.45'AS REAL )
SELECT CONVERT(REAL, '123.45' )

 

[junkmail]

I already tried both and get the same error can't convert varchar to real.

 

[jbenson001]

That worked for me..
Check your data, you most likely have bad data somewhere

 

[junkmail]

Will do.Thanks

 

[gmmastros]

Try running a query like this...

Select YourColumn
From   YourTable
Where  IsNumeric(YourColumn) = 0

There are certain things in string data that will return true by the IsNumeric function, but would still error when converting to real. However, I suspect that the query shown above will likely show you the bad data you have in the table.

-George
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
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