Working with decimal numbers MySQl & ASP

[SmokeyJoe]

I recently became treasurer of a club and decided to write a small program using localhost to keep track of the income and expenses. I am having problems changing the bank balance when I write or deposit a check.

It appears that with MYSQL data types for numbers are limited to Intgers and strings (Decimal is a string according to my book). Using varchar to hold my bank balance the following works.
The following works when writing a check
vBankBal = vBankBal - vCkAmt

Using the reverse to deposit a check concatenates the two strings:
vBankBal = vBankBal + vCkAmt
I know I am being stupid but what type field would I use or how would i add the two fields to give the new bank balance

Thanks in advance

 

[TonyGroves]

You would not use a CHAR or VARCHAR to hold numeric data like a bank balance. DECIMAL is fine, and so is INTEGER of various sizes. FLOAT/DOUBLE is also available, but not suitable here because it gives rounding errors. My own preference is for INTEGER/BIGINT because it's faster, but the amounts must be stored in cents, then divided by 100 before being displayed.

 

[SmokeyJoe]

Thanks Tony, That is about what I had concluded.

Smokey Joe