Issue with to_char in sql

Question

Hi,
I am trying to execute below statment which gives me error:
select
CASE
WHEN BAL < =0
THEN 0
ELSE to_char(ABS(BAL),'fm9999999999999999990.90')
END BALANCE
from ACCOUNT_TABLE
Error: inconsitent datatypes: expected NUMBER got CHAR
It works fine when I do not use to_char function. But gives value as '0' instead of '0.00'.
To get value 0.00, I am trying to_char with fm format which is giving above error. Can anyone let me know if I'm giving something wrong here.
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Hi,
998158 wrote:
Hi,
I am trying to execute below statment which gives me error:
select
CASE
WHEN BAL < =0
THEN 0
ELSE to_char(ABS(BAL),'fm9999999999999999990.90')
END BALANCE
from ACCOUNT_TABLE
Error: inconsitent datatypes: expected NUMBER got CHAR
It works fine when I do not use to_char function. But gives value as '0' instead of '0.00'.
To get value 0.00, I am trying to_char with fm format which is giving above error. Can anyone let me know if I'm giving something wrong here.
Thanks in advance
If it works fine when you don't use TO_CHAR, then why use TO_CHAR?
What are you trying to do? Post a little sample data (CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements for different numbers) and the exact results you want from that data.
Above, you're saying "bal <= 0", menaing "do the same thing if bal is less than 0, or if bal is exaclty 0".  If you want it to do one thing when bal is less than 0, and something else when bal is exactly 0, then use "<' instead of "<=".  For example:
CASE
    WHEN  bal < 0     -- NOT <=
    THEN  '0'         -- This is a VARCHAR2, to match what the ELSE branch returns
    ELSE  TO_CHAR (bal, 'fm'fm9999999999999999990.90')
END
The 1st part of the CASE expression takes care of all negative numbers, which is the only situation in which bal <> ABS (bal).  If control gets as far as the ELSE clause, then bal is the same as ABS (bal), so there's no need to call ABS.