Question

I have the following value 48.81, it comes as a string from the database, I need to convert it to decimal, I’m using:

Dim Seconds As Decimal = Convert.ToDecimal((Coordinate.Substring(4, 5)), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)

I’m receiving 4881D and I need 48,81

Any ideas? I thought CultureInfo.InvariantCulture was going to help me with that

EDIT

The coordinate value is 675900.244.
I’m “spliting” it like this:

Dim Degress As Integer = Coordinate.Substring(0, 2),
Dim Minutes As Integer = Coordinate.Substring(2, 2),
Dim Seconds As Decimal = Convert.ToDecimal((Coordinate.Substring(4, 5)), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture),
Dim Position As Enumerations.EnumCoordinatesPosition = Coordinate.Substring(9, 1)

EDIT

EDIT

EDIT
This is the value of the coordinate in the database

Answer 1

The problem lies in the variable databaseCoordinate, which contains comma instead of dot. InvariantCulture uses comma to separate groups of digits and dot as a decimal symbol. To see this execute the following code:

//outputs '.'
Console.WriteLine(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat.NumberDecimalSeparator);
//outputs ',' 
Console.WriteLine(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat.NumberGroupSeparator); 

What you can do about it:

1. Replace comma with dot before parsing – all your code then will work as expected.

2. Specify decimal separator for Convert.ToDecimal method like this:

   decimal Seconds = Convert.ToDecimal((Coordinate.Substring(4, 5)), new NumberFormatInfo { NumberDecimalSeparator = "," });
   

3. Write update script DB for all DB entries with coordinates to use dot as a decimal symbol.

Example – this code gives the results you are expecting:

string Coordinate = "100948.811"; //Note the dot instead of comma
int Degress = Convert.ToInt32(Coordinate.Substring(0, 2)); //10
int Minutes = Convert.ToInt32(Coordinate.Substring(2, 2)); //9
decimal Seconds = Convert.ToDecimal((Coordinate.Substring(4, 5)), CultureInfo.InvariantCulture); //48.81