Oracle "numbers" act like strings

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I orginally developed an ASP web app against an Access database.
In useing sql queries to retrive data, I was setting some variable equal to the returned record values.
something like...
fldTotals = GetValue(rs, "fldTotals&quot

then, to display as currencty I was use following..
fldtotals= formatcurrency(fldfldtotals,0)

Well all went well until I moved my ASP to work against
Oracle73 tables instead...

Now, I get an error with the formatcurrency function.
And, it seems that ASP interpet the fldTotals variable as
a string instead of a number.
I have been able to work around this by adding...
fldtotals= cstr(fldfldtotals)
before
fldtotals= formatcurrency(fldfldtotals,0)

However, it would be much,much better if the "fldTotal" was
interpeted as a number not as a string without having to use
cstr() function.

I have tried "oracle73" and "MicroSoft ODBC for Oracle" drivers and get same results..

Would appreaciate any suggestions,,comments,actions to take...

TIA,

Ken Hardwick
Norman,OK