Question

I have a column TOTAL_DOLLARS that holds String values that I want to convert to Decimal. However, these values also have a $ character preceding them (as they are dollar amounts). I want to remove this $ character, though I can’t quite find a method to do so.

Here is what I’m trying:

For Each row As DataRow In myTable.Rows
    Replace(row.Item("TOTAL_DOLLARS"), "$", "")
Next

Any help is much appreciated.

Answer 1

Assuming you want to preserve data integrity on your “TOTAL_DOLLARS” column, simply add a new column of the desired type and loop through to fill it:

myTable.Columns.Add("Total", GetType(Decimal))
For Each row As DataRow In myTable.Rows
    row("Total") = Convert.ToDecimal(row("TOTAL_DOLLARS").ToString.Replace("$", ""))
Next

or like this (to preserve NULLs):

myTable.Columns.Add("Total", GetType(Decimal))
For Each row As DataRow In myTable.Rows
    If Not IsDBNull(row("TOTAL_DOLLARS")) Then
        row("Total") = Convert.ToDecimal(row("TOTAL_DOLLARS").ToString.Replace("$", ""))
    Else
        row("Total") = System.DBNull.Value
    End If
Next