Question

I have a table with 3 columns:

  customer_name varchar
 ,account_type varchar
 ,current_balance double precision

Example values for current_balance:

1200
1500.5
1500

I want them to display like this:

1200.00
1500.50
1500.00

I tried the following query:

SELECT to_char(current_balance,'9999999999999999D99')
  FROM bank;

It formats the way I want but adds a space at the beginning. How to solve this? Is there a better way to format?

Answer 1

You can use trim to remove the extra spaces. With no arguments, it removes only spaces.

charles=# SELECT to_char(12345.67,'99999999999999999D99');
        to_char
-----------------------
              12345.67
(1 row)

charles=# SELECT trim(to_char(12345.67,'99999999999999999D99'));
  btrim
----------
 12345.67
(1 row)