Question

I have the following C# code that reads in data from a datatable (which was original constructed from an Excel spreadsheet)

    private byte GetVal(DataRow dataRow, string caption)
    {
        var val = dataRow.GetValue(caption).ToString().Trim();
        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(val))
        {
            return (byte)(Decimal.Parse(val) * 100);
        }
        return (byte)0;
    }

this is blowing up because there is value of: “5.5555555555555552E-2” reading in from one of the cells (the val variable)

its blowing up on this line:

    return (byte)(Decimal.Parse(val) * 100);

with the error: Input string was not in a correct format.

What is the best way to work around this so i can read in the value?

Answer 1

Try this:

return (byte)(Decimal.Parse(val, System.Globalization.NumberStyles.Float, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));

Decimal.Parse Method (String, NumberStyles, IFormatProvider)

NumberStyles.AllowExponent (AllowExponentis a subset of NumberStyles.Float)

Indicates that the numeric string can be in exponential notation. The
AllowExponent flag allows the parsed string to contain an exponent
that begins with the “E” or “e” character and that is followed by an
optional positive or negative sign and an integer. In other words, it
successfully parses strings in the form nnnExx, nnnE+xx, and nnnE-xx.
It does not allow a decimal separator or sign in the significand or
mantissa; to allow these elements in the string to be parsed, use the
AllowDecimalPoint and AllowLeadingSign flags, or use a composite style
that includes these individual flags.