Is there any way to stop a textbox in a report from formatting any text?
Specifically I have a textbox that shows an order number and for some reason it insists on adding decimals to the number even though I tried to set the number format to ‘0’. The value comes from a MySQL database and is stored as a VARCHAR
My worries is that it will be a problem other places in the report as well. I have a textbox showing comments from the operator and he can write anything and I don’t want it to format any of that text
If the value is stored in the DB as VARCHAR, then the number format is not being obeyed, because you’re not giving the report engine a numeric value. 123 is a number, "123" is a string.
I can think of several options, but the easiest would probably be to round the number in your query before returning it - MySQL :: MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual :: 12.22.4 Rounding Behavior
If it’s in fact a number-stored-as-string in the DB (which is a bad idea, generally), then you won’t be able to use round() for the same reason Ignition isn’t using the number format property - but you can still do manual string operations; it looks like substring_index() would do the trick:
MySQL :: MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual :: 12.8 String Functions and Operators
The number is being stored as VARCHAR because there can be chars in the order number and it can contain leading 0’s. Just noticed on one of the generated reports that decimals was added and I tried to change that, still without any luck though. It keeps insisting on putting decimals on the number if the order number is an integer like value.
And of course there isn’t decimals on the order number in the database, e.g. stored value is 12345678 and the report viewer shows it as 12345678.0
It really sounds like something’s incorrect in the DB here. I just set up a simple table in MySQL with a VARCHAR column, and I can retrieve values with leading zeroes in a table no problem:
This is a SELECT * FROM table with zero customization done to the table.
Thank you for your answer,
I forgot to tell that the query result is being formatted in a script to support multiple languages.
Just took a blank report and copied the query to it and a textbox isn’t showing decimals.
In the actual report I build a new datakey from the query with interpolated strings to support the different languages.
Here’s a snippet of what I mean
And one showing the decimals:
The values marked are stored as VARCHAR in the database
I do not have access to the databse right now.
Another thing I noticed.
I format all decimal and integer values from the query result using a java.text.NumberFormat with localization. All values that has been formatted by the numberformat are not being formatted by the textbox formatting. If I use the numberformat on the order number the decimal are gone.
What’s the difference between a python string and the string returned by the NumberFormat.format() method?
I’ve been out, but getting back to this: It still sounds like you’re bringing in strings, not numbers, and expecting the number format controls on the text box to do anything, which it won’t. Are you already in contact with support?
No I’m not in contact with support.
I’ve been out as well.
Yes I’m bringing in strings which is why I don’t understand it’s adding decimals. I’m not using the number formatter on the order and customer numbers. I just did that as a test to see what happens. What I saw is that the decimals was gone.
EDIT:
Not sure what is going on but it seems like something is going on with the string interpolation.
‘%s’ format seems to add decimals if the string value looks like an int. Using ‘%i’ instead removes the decimals. I can’t replicate it in the script console however. I can’t use ‘%i’ formatting because some of the customer and order numbers have letters in them. In fact that’s the new standard my customer will be using… So some (old) numbers will be digits only and the new numbers will be a letter followed by 6 digits.
