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Asked: 2026-06-15T01:11:41+00:00

I’m having one of those throw the computer out the window days. I am

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I’m having one of those throw the computer out the window days.

I am working on a problem involving Crystal Reports (Version 10) and an Oracle Database (11g).

I am taking a view from the database that returns a string (varcahr2(50)) which is actually a number, when a basic SELECT * query is run on this view I get the number back in the format 000000000000100.00.

When this view is then used in Crystal Reports I can view the field data, but I can’t sum the data as it is not a number.

I began, by attempting to using ToNumber on the field, to which Crystal’s response was that the string was not numeric text. Ok fair enough, I went back to the view and ran TO_NUMBER, when this was then used in crystal it did not return any results. I also attempted to run TO_CHAR on the view so that I could hopefully import the field as text and then perform a ToNumber, yet the same as with the TO_NUMBER no records were displayed.

I’ve started new reports, I’ve started new views. No avail.

This seems to have something to do with how I am retrieving the data for the view.

In simplistic terms I’m pulling data from a table looking at two fields a Foreign Key and a Value field.

SELECT PRIMARY_KEY, 
       NVL(MAX(DECODE(FOREIGN_KEY, FOREIGN_KEY_OF_VALUE_I_NEED, VALUE_FIELD)), 0)
    FROM MY_TABLE  
    GROUP BY PRIMARY_KEY

When I attempted to put modify the result using TO_NUMBER or TO_CHAR I have used it around the VALUE_FIELD itself and the entire expression, wither way works when the run in a SQL statement. However any TO_NUMBER or TO_CHAR modification to the statement returns no results in Crystal Reports when the view is used.

This whole problem smacks of something that is a tick box or equivalent that I have overlooked.

Any suggestions of how to solve this issue or where I could go to look for an answer would be greatly appreciated.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    This turned out to be an issue with how Crystal Reports deals with queries from a database. All I needed to do was contain my SQL statement within another Select Statement and on this instance of the column apply the TO_NUMBER so that Crystal Reports would recognize the column values as numbers.

    Hopefully this helps someone out, as this was a terrible waste of an afternoon.

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