Question

I am trying to figure out the style string for the Format(Expression as Object, Style as String) function in a Reporting Services expression.

I can’t find where these style format strings are documented!

Specifically I am trying to format a Price field to be always 2 decimal places.

ie 1.5 formats to $1.50

Answer 1

Format with Currency format string

=Format(Fields!Price.Value, "C")

It will give you 2 decimal places with “$” prefixed.

You can find other format strings on MSDN: Adding Style and Formatting to a ReportViewer Report

Note: The MSDN article has been archived to the “VS2005_General” document, which is no longer directly accessible online. Here is the excerpt of the formatting strings referenced:

Formatting Numbers

The following table lists common .NET Framework number formatting
strings.

Format string, Name

C or c Currency

D or d Decimal

E or e Scientific

F or f Fixed-point

G or g General

N or n Number

P or p Percentage

R or r Round-trip

X or x Hexadecimal

You can modify many of the format strings to include a precision
specifier that defines the number of digits to the right of the

decimal point. For example, a formatting string of D0 formats the
number so that it has no digits after the decimal point. You

can also use custom formatting strings, for example, #,###.

Formatting Dates

The following table lists common .NET Framework date formatting
strings.

Format string, Name

d Short date

D Long date

t Short time

T Long time

f Full date/time (short time)

F Full date/time (long time)

g General date/time (short time)

G General date/time (long time)

M or m Month day

R or r RFC1123 pattern

Y or y Year month

You can also a use custom formatting strings; for example, dd/MM/yy.
For more information about .NET Framework
formatting strings, see Formatting Types.