Conversion of OracleDecimal to System.Double in C# - c#

I'm having some problems with the conversion of value from an OracleDecimal. Here is the code
public static T GetReaderValue(this OracleDataReader dr, string col) where T : struct
{
int colNo = dr.GetOrdinal(col);
var value = (double)OracleDecimal.SetPrecision(dr.GetOracleDecimal(colNo), 28);
return (T) Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
}
This works fine for most values but for some, like 0.12345, it returns numbers like 0.123499999999.
Can anyone offer some advise on how to convert OracleDecimal without these rounding errors?
Thanks!

System.Double is stored in base 2 rather than base 10. Some numbers that can be represented using a finite number of digits in base 10 require an infinite number of digits in base 2 (and vice-versa).
As the database appears to be storing a decimal number you might be better off converting to a System.Decimal value instead so you don't lose precision (as System.Decimal uses base 10 in the same manner as OracleDecimal).

Related

Cast number to type?

How do you go about casting numbers to specific data types?
Example:
253 is 32-bit signed integer
253L is 64-bit signed integer
253D is Double precision float
As you can see you can cast directly to Long and Double, but there are certain problems I have here. I cannot cast to byte, single, 16bit, unsigned...
It becomes a problem when I have to input data into many different functions with arguments of varying data types:
Method1( byte Value );
Method2( sbyte Value );
Method3( ushort Value );
//Etc.
Using int.Parse(string) or Convert.ToInt32 will do the trick.
Or you could try casting the value expicitly like that:
int age = 53;
Method1((byte) age);
Try using the Convert class:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/System.Convert_methods(v=vs.110).aspx
e.g.
int myInt = Convert.ToInt32(anything);

Convert unknown boxed simple value types (char, int, ulong, etc.) to UInt64

Expanding on Jon Skeet's answer to This Previous Question. Skeet doesn't address the failure that occurs when negative values and two's complement values enter the picture.
In short, I want to convert any simple type (held in an unknown boxed object) to System.UInt64 so I can work with the underlying binary representation.
Why do I want to do this? See the explanation at the bottom.
The example below shows the cases where Convert.ToInt64(object) and Convert.ToUInt64(object) both break (OverflowException).
There are only two causes for the OverflowExceptions below:
-10UL causes an exception when converting to Int64 because the negative value casts to 0xfffffffffffffff6 (in the unchecked context), which is a positive number larger than Int64.MaxValue. I want this to convert to -10L.
When converting to UInt64, signed types holding negative values cause an exception because -10 is less than UInt64.MinValue. I want these to convert to their true two's complement value (which is 0xffffffffffffffff6). Unsigned types don't truly hold the negative value -10 because it is converted to two's complement in the unchecked context; thus, no exception occurs with unsigned types.
The kludge solution would seem to be conversion to Int64 followed by an unchecked cast to UInt64. This intermediate cast would be easier because only one instance causes an exception for Int64 versus eight failures when converting directly to UInt64.
Note: The example uses an unchecked context only for the purpose of forcing negative values into unsigned types during boxing (which creates a positive two's complement equivalent value). This unchecked context is not a part of the problem at hand.
using System;
enum DumbEnum { Negative = -10, Positive = 10 };
class Test
{
static void Main()
{
unchecked
{
Check((sbyte)10);
Check((byte)10);
Check((short)10);
Check((ushort)10);
Check((int)10);
Check((uint)10);
Check((long)10);
Check((ulong)10);
Check((char)'\u000a');
Check((float)10.1);
Check((double)10.1);
Check((bool)true);
Check((decimal)10);
Check((DumbEnum)DumbEnum.Positive);
Check((sbyte)-10);
Check((byte)-10);
Check((short)-10);
Check((ushort)-10);
Check((int)-10);
Check((uint)-10);
Check((long)-10);
//Check((ulong)-10); // OverflowException
Check((float)-10);
Check((double)-10);
Check((bool)false);
Check((decimal)-10);
Check((DumbEnum)DumbEnum.Negative);
CheckU((sbyte)10);
CheckU((byte)10);
CheckU((short)10);
CheckU((ushort)10);
CheckU((int)10);
CheckU((uint)10);
CheckU((long)10);
CheckU((ulong)10);
CheckU((char)'\u000a');
CheckU((float)10.1);
CheckU((double)10.1);
CheckU((bool)true);
CheckU((decimal)10);
CheckU((DumbEnum)DumbEnum.Positive);
//CheckU((sbyte)-10); // OverflowException
CheckU((byte)-10);
//CheckU((short)-10); // OverflowException
CheckU((ushort)-10);
//CheckU((int)-10); // OverflowException
CheckU((uint)-10);
//CheckU((long)-10); // OverflowException
CheckU((ulong)-10);
//CheckU((float)-10.1); // OverflowException
//CheckU((double)-10.1); // OverflowException
CheckU((bool)false);
//CheckU((decimal)-10); // OverflowException
//CheckU((DumbEnum)DumbEnum.Negative); // OverflowException
}
}
static void Check(object o)
{
Console.WriteLine("Type {0} converted to Int64: {1}",
o.GetType().Name, Convert.ToInt64(o));
}
static void CheckU(object o)
{
Console.WriteLine("Type {0} converted to UInt64: {1}",
o.GetType().Name, Convert.ToUInt64(o));
}
}
WHY?
Why do I want to be able to convert all these value types to and from UInt64? Because I have written a class library that converts structs or classes to bit fields packed into a single UInt64 value.
Example: Consider the DiffServ field in every IP packet header, which is composed of a number of binary bit fields:
Using my class library, I can create a struct to represent the DiffServ field. I created a BitFieldAttribute which indicates which bits belong where in the binary representation:
struct DiffServ : IBitField
{
[BitField(3,0)]
public PrecedenceLevel Precedence;
[BitField(1,3)]
public bool Delay;
[BitField(1,4)]
public bool Throughput;
[BitField(1,5)]
public bool Reliability;
[BitField(1,6)]
public bool MonetaryCost;
}
enum PrecedenceLevel
{
Routine, Priority, Immediate, Flash, FlashOverride, CriticEcp,
InternetworkControl, NetworkControl
}
My class library can then convert an instance of this struct to and from its proper binary representation:
// Create an arbitrary DiffServe instance.
DiffServ ds = new DiffServ();
ds.Precedence = PrecedenceLevel.Immediate;
ds.Throughput = true;
ds.Reliability = true;
// Convert struct to value.
long dsValue = ds.Pack();
// Create struct from value.
DiffServ ds2 = Unpack<DiffServ>(0x66);
To accomplish this, my class library looks for fields/properties decorated with the BitFieldAttribute. Getting and setting members retrieves an object containing the boxed value type (int, bool, enum, etc.) Therefore, I need to unbox any value type and convert it to it's bare-bones binary representation so that the bits can be extracted and packed into a UInt64 value.
I'm going to post my best solution as fodder for the masses.
These conversions eliminate all exceptions (except for very large float, double, decimal values which do not fit in 64-bit integers) when unboxing an unknown simple value type held in object o:
long l = o is ulong ? (long)(ulong)o : Convert.ToInt64(o));
ulong u = o is ulong ? (ulong)o : (ulong)Convert.ToInt64(o));
Any improvements to this will be welcomed.

Error: Specified cast is not valid while converting decimal to double

I have a function as under
private double RoundOff(object value)
{
return Math.Round((double)value, 2);
}
And I am invoking it as under
decimal dec = 32.464762931906M;
var res = RoundOff(dec);
I am gettingthe below error
Specified cast is not valid
What is the mistake?
Thanks
Casting the object to double will attempt to unbox the object as a double, but the boxed object is a decimal. You need to convert it to a double after first unboxing it. Then you perform the rounding:
Math.Round((double)(decimal)value, 2);
The other answers are correct in terms of getting something that will run - but I wouldn't recommend using them.
You should almost never convert between decimal and double. If you want to use a decimal, you should use Math.Round(decimal). Don't convert a decimal to double and round that - there could easily be nasty situations where that loses information.
Pick the right representation and stick with it. Oh, and redesign RoundOff to not take object. By all means have one overload for double and one for decimal, but give them appropriate parameter types.
As an alternative to John's answer, if you want to use other number types than just decimal, you could use this code;
private double RoundOff(object value)
{
return Math.Round(Convert.ToDouble(value), 2);
}

Creating a percentage type in C#

My application deals with percentages a lot. These are generally stored in the database in their written form rather than decimal form (50% would be stored as 50 rather than 0.5). There is also the requirement that percentages are formatted consistently throughout the application.
To this end i have been considering creating a struct called percentage that encapsulates this behaviour. I guess its signature would look something like this:
public struct Percentage
{
public static Percentage FromWrittenValue();
public static Percentage FromDecimalValue();
public decimal WrittenValue { get; set; }
public decimal DecimalValue { get; set; }
}
Is this a reasonable thing to do? It would certianly encapsulate some logic that is repeated many times but it is straightforward logic that peopel are likely to understand. I guess i need to make this type behave like a normal number as much as possible however i am wary of creating implicit conversions to a from decimal in case these confuse people further.
Any suggestions of how to implement this class? or compelling reasons not to.
I am actually a little bit flabbergasted at the cavalier attitude toward data quality here.
Unfortunately, the colloquial term "percentage" can mean one of two different things: a probability and a variance. The OP doesn't specify which, but since variance is usually calculated, I'm guessing he may mean percentage as a probability or fraction (such as a discount).
The extremely good reason for writing a Percentage class for this purpose has nothing to do with presentation, but with making sure that you prevent those silly silly users from doing things like entering invalid values like -5 and 250.
I'm thinking really more about a Probability class: a numeric type whose valid range is strictly [0,1]. You can encapsulate that rule in ONE place, rather than writing code like this in 37 places:
public double VeryImportantLibraryMethodNumber37(double consumerProvidedGarbage)
{
if (consumerProvidedGarbage < 0 || consumerProvidedGarbage > 1)
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("Here we go again.");
return someOtherNumber * consumerProvidedGarbage;
}
instead you have this nice implementation. No, it's not fantastically obvious improvement, but remember, you're doing that value-checking in each time you're using this value.
public double VeryImportantLibraryMethodNumber37(Percentage guaranteedCleanData)
{
return someOtherNumber * guaranteedCleanData.Value;
}
Percentage class should not be concerned with formatting itself for the UI. Rather, implement IFormatProvider and ICustomFormatter to handle formatting logic.
As for conversion, I'd go with standard TypeConverter route, which would allow .NET to handle this class correctly, plus a separate PercentageParser utility class, which would delegate calls to TypeDescriptor to be more usable in external code. In addition, you can provide implicit or explicit conversion operator, if this is required.
And when it comes to Percentage, I don't see any compelling reason to wrap simple decimal into a separate struct other than for semantic expressiveness.
It seems like a reasonable thing to do, but I'd reconsider your interface to make it more like other CLR primitive types, e.g. something like.
// all error checking omitted here; you would want range checks etc.
public struct Percentage
{
public Percentage(decimal value) : this()
{
this.Value = value
}
public decimal Value { get; private set; }
public static explicit operator Percentage(decimal d)
{
return new Percentage(d);
}
public static implicit operator decimal(Percentage p)
{
return this.Value;
}
public static Percentage Parse(string value)
{
return new Percentage(decimal.Parse(value));
}
public override string ToString()
{
return string.Format("{0}%", this.Value);
}
}
You'd definitely also want to implement IComparable<T> and IEquatable<T> as well as all the corresponding operators and overrides of Equals, GetHashCode, etc. You'd also probably also want to consider implementing the IConvertible and IFormattable interfaces.
This is a lot of work. The struct is likely to be somewhere in the region of 1000 lines and take a couple of days to do (I know this because it's a similar task to a Money struct I wrote a few months back). If this is of cost-benefit to you, then go for it.
This question reminds me of the Money class Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture talks about- the link might give you food for thought.
Even in 2022, .Net 6 I found myself using something just like this. I concur with Michael on his answer for the OP and like to extend it for future Googlers.
Creating a value type would be indispensable in explaining the domain's intent with enforced immutability. Notice especially in the Fraction Record you will get a Quotient that would normally cause an exception however here we can safely show d / 0 with no error, likewise all other inherited children are also granted that protection (It also offers an excellent place to establish simple routines to check validity, data rehydration (as if DBA's don't make mistakes), serialization concerns just to name a few.)
namespace StackOverflowing;
// Honor the simple fraction
public record class Fraction(decimal Dividend, decimal Divisor)
{
public decimal Quotient => (Divisor > 0.0M) ? Dividend / Divisor : 0.0M;
// Display dividend / divisor as the string, not the quotient
public override string ToString()
{
return $"{Dividend} / {Divisor}";
}
};
// Honor the decimal based interpretation of the simple fraction
public record class DecimalFraction(decimal Dividend, decimal Divisor) : Fraction(Dividend, Divisor)
{
// Change the display of this type to the decimal form
public override string ToString()
{
return Quotient.ToString();
}
};
// Honor the decimal fraction as the basis value but offer a converted value as a percentage
public record class Percent(decimal Value) : DecimalFraction(Value, 100.00M)
{
// Display the quotient as it represents the simple fraction in a base 10 format aka radix 10
public override string ToString()
{
return Quotient.ToString("p");
}
};
// Example of a domain value object consumed by an entity or aggregate in finance
public record class PercentagePoint(Percent Left, Percent Right)
{
public Percent Points => new(Left.Value - Right.Value);
public override string ToString()
{
return $"{Points.Dividend} points";
}
}
[TestMethod]
public void PercentScratchPad()
{
var approximatedPiFraction = new Fraction(22, 7);
var approximatedPiDecimal = new DecimalFraction(22, 7);
var percent2 = new Percent(2);
var percent212 = new Percent(212);
var points = new PercentagePoint(new Percent(50), new Percent(40));
TestContext.WriteLine($"Approximated Pi Fraction: {approximatedPiFraction}");
TestContext.WriteLine($"Approximated Pi Decimal: {approximatedPiDecimal}");
TestContext.WriteLine($"2 Percent: {percent2}");
TestContext.WriteLine($"212 Percent: {percent212}");
TestContext.WriteLine($"Percentage Points: {points}");
TestContext.WriteLine($"Percentage Points as percentage: {points.Points}");
}
 PercentScratchPad
Standard Output: 
TestContext Messages:
Approximated Pi Fraction: 22 / 7
Approximated Pi Decimal: 3.1428571428571428571428571429
2 Percent: 2.00%
212 Percent: 212.00%
Percentage Points: 10 points
Percentage Points as percentage: 10.00%
I strongly recommend you just stick with using the double type here (I don't see any use for the decimal type either, as wouldn't actually seem to require base-10 precision in the low decimal places). By creating a Percentage type here, you're really performing unnecessary encapsulation and just making it harder to work with the values in code. If you use a double, which is customary for storying percentages (among many other tasks), you'll find dealing with the BCL and other code a lot nicer in most cases.
The only extra functionality that I can see you need for percentages is the ability to convert to/from a percentage string easily. This can be done very simply anyway using single lines of code, or even extension methods if you want to abstract it slightly.
Converting to percentage string :
public static string ToPercentageString(this double value)
{
return value.ToString("#0.0%"); // e.g. 76.2%
}
Converting from percentage string :
public static double FromPercentageString(this string value)
{
return double.Parse(value.SubString(0, value.Length - 1)) / 100;
}
I think you may be mixing up presentation and logic here. I would convert the percentage to a decimal or float fraction (0.5) when getting it from the database and then let the presentation deal with the formatting.
I'd not create a separate class for that - this just creates more overhead. I thinkg it will be faster just to use double variables set to the database value.
If it is common knowledge that the database stores percentages as 50 instead of 0.5, everybody will understand statemens like part = (percentage / 100.0) * (double)value.

"Intelligent" cast of double to two differently formatted strings?

I'm working with a database that has the limit that the only (numeric) datatype it can store is a double. What I want to do is pick the number for a certain row and put it into an HTTP request. The problem revolves around that I cannot know if this number should or should not have decimals.
For example, if the double is an ID, I cannot have any kind of formatting whatsoever, since the site that gets the HTTP request will be confused. Observe the following examples:
site.com/showid.php?id=12300000 // OK
site.com/showid.php?id=1.23E7 // Bad; scientific notation
site.com/showid.php?id=12300000.0 // Bad; trailing decimal
The solution to this would be to cast it to a long. Ignoring the problem of overflowing the long, it solves the scientific notation and (obviously) trailing decimal. This could be an acceptable solution but it would be nice if the code didn't assume it were IDs we were dealing with. What if, for example, I were to query a site that shows a map and the number are coordinates, where the decimals are very important? Then a cast to long is no longer acceptable.
In short;
If the double has no decimals, do not add a trailing decimal.
If it has decimals, keep them all.
Neither case should have scientific notation or thousand separators.
This solution will be ported to both C# and Java so I accept answers in both languages.
(Oh, and I had no idea what to call this question, feel free to rename if you got something better.)
To complement the answer of gustafc (who beat me by 1 minute), here's the relevant code line for C#:
MyDouble.ToString("0.################")
or
string.Format("{0:0.################}", MyDouble);
Since it is safe to format the value with no trailing zeroes if it is integral (whether it represents an ID or a coordinate), why not just codify the logic you describe in your bullet points? For example (C#, but should translate readily to Java):
// Could also use Math.Floor, etc., to determine if it is integral
long integralPart = (long)doubleValue;
if ((double)integralPart == doubleValue)
{
// has no decimals: format it as an integer e.g. integralPart.ToString("D") in C#
}
else
{
// has decimals: keep them all e.g. doubleValue.ToString("F17")
}
How about encapsulating the number in a custom type?
public class IntelligentNumber
{
private readonly double number;
public IntelligentNumber(double number)
{
this.number = number;
}
public override string ToString()
{
long integralPart = (long)this.number;
if((double)integralPart == this.number)
{
return integralPart.ToString();
}
else
{
return this.number.ToString();
}
}
}
See also Vilx-'s answer for a better algorithm than the one above.
check whether num == round(num)
In Java, you can do this with DecimalFormat.
static String format(double n) {
return new DecimalFormat("0.###########################").format(n);
}
The # placeholders won't show up unless the number something other than zeros to put there, and the decimal point doesn't show up unless there's something following it.
Heres my own conclusion:
Check if the double has decimals.
Depending on that, format the string accordingly.
And then something important; without specifying an invariant culture, the comma in the has-decimals case may be a "," instead of a "." which isnt liked by HTTP requests. Of course, this problem only crops up if your OS is set to a locale that prefers the comma.
public static string DoubleToStringFormat(double dval)
{
long lval = (long)dval;
if ((double)lval == dval)
{
// has no decimals: format as integer
return dval.ToString("#.", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
}
else
{
// has decimals: keep them all
return dval.ToString("0.##################", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
}
}

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