How to get Str() to left align in MS Access 2013 - string

Using the built in evaluation function Str() to convert a number to a string the resultant number seems to come with a preceding space which is messing with my report formatting. Entries with numbers indent slightly relative to those without. Is there a simple solution to this - or even a complicated one?
Example: Calculated field using:
IIf([NumNights]=1,"Wibble",Str([NumNights])+" nights")
Produces (in the table, but also on any report using this):

Take a look at trim():
Trim(Str([NumNights]))

Or use CStr:
IIf([NumNights]=1,"Wibble",CStr([NumNights])+" nights")

Related

Evaluate long string (>255 characters) as array

So I quite often find myself doing tasks on Excel which involve evaluating a text string as an array. Generally speaking I just use this:
Function EVAL(Ref As String)
EVAL = Evaluate(Ref)
End Function
So the formula will be, for example:
=EVAL("{"&CHAR(34)&SUBSTITUTE(TEXTJOIN(";",TRUE,MID(Index[Industries],2,LEN(Index[Industries])-2)),";",CHAR(34)&";"&CHAR(34))&CHAR(34)&"}")
The cells in this example will have contents like:
;Automotive;Rail;Energy;
;Automotive;Rail;
;Energy;
;Automotive;Aerospace;
(As it happens this is the precise problem I'm stuck on right now, though it has come up in different ways in the past.)
This has worked for me in the past, but I've been running into difficulties lately.
I have come to the conclusion it isn't working because application.evaluate, it turns out, has a character limit of 255. I've seen examples of VBA tricks to bypass this for text strings that are formulas rather than arrays, but copy-pasting those they don't seem to work for when I'm using it to interpret a text string as an array rather than as a formula.
Is there some trick to get this to work? (Or, indeed, is there some alternative method to achieve this altogether?)
Right, as per my comments, if you are using ms365, you could avoid your workbook to be xlsm just because you need to split values into an array. Make use of what is available with native functions, for example:
Formula in C2:
=TEXTSPLIT(CONCAT(A1:A4),,";",1)
Formula in D2:
=FILTERXML("<t><s>"&SUBSTITUTE(CONCAT(A1:A4),";","</s><s>")&"</s></t>","//s[node()]")
Note 1: As per time of writing you'd need to enable the BETA-channel to gain access to TEXTSPLIT(), and if I recall correctly your version (2203) is allowed to start using this function. Just google how to get access and update your Excel.
Both options can obviously be nested inside the UNIQUE() function.
Note 2: If at any point CONCAT()'s limits are reached (32767 characters, thanks #ScottCraner), maybe you can avoid using that with help of the lambda's helper function REDUCE():
=TEXTSPLIT(REDUCE("",A1:A4,LAMBDA(a,b,a&b)),,";",1)
Note 3: In case you can't update your Excel just yet, and you wonder how to use FILTERXML(), don't mind me refering you to another post I wrote a while back here.

Look Up not working as expected in SSRS expression

I have 2 datasets in form of lists (Share point) in my rdl in Visual Studio 2012.
I have BranchCode column as the common column in both my data sets. One tablix in my report where I am writing an expression for looking up BranchCode from dataset1 with BranchCode of dataset2. If it is true then I want it to retrieve the corresponding BranchCost value from dataset2.
I am able to write the lookup expression but final o/p is just a blank value. Can somebody please help me out with this?
I always recommend casting your datatypes in expressions.
So what you should have is something like this:
=LOOKUP(Fields!BranchCode.Value, Fields!BranchCode.Value, Fields!BranchCost.Value, "DataSet2")
You would use the VB.NET functions to cast your values to be the same. Common examples are CSTR() - string, CINT() - int and CDEC() -decimal
=LOOKUP(CSTR(Fields!BranchCode.Value), CSTR(Fields!BranchCode.Value), Fields!BranchCost.Value, "DataSet2")
If it is a string you could also wrap it in the RTRIM() function to make sure there are no trailing spaces.
If you still have issues I recommend outputting the data in both DataSets into tables in the report. Run the report and inspect the data to ensure the DataSets contain the expected data. I also like to add special characters around strings in the table such as # so you can easily identify any leading or trailing spaces.

Decimal number in string-data-type with large amount of decimals always interpreted as large integer (regional decimal separator issue)

Background: I'm receiving data for my Excel application from an API in JSON format. For this matter I'm receiving numerical values as a string, as everything sent in JSON naturally is a text format - and so does VBA also interpret it. As I'm located in Denmark, using a different decimal separator than the native on in Excel (my Danish version utilizes , as separator rather than .).
Case:
This is causing quite a bit of trouble as Excel interprets this as a thousand-separator when converting the string to a number.
Searching for answers I've found that the best solution, normally, is to convert the string to double when using VBA, utilizing CDbl(string to convert to number).
This usually is the case, but in my case I'm receiving a number with a lot of decimals such as: "9.300000190734863".
When doing a CDbl("9.300000190734863") this results in a very large integer: 9,30000019073486E+15
Also, I don't think utilizing a replace() approach is feasible in my case as I might also have data that uses both decimal- and thousand separators at the same time, making my results prone to replacement errors.
However, inserting the string value directly into a cell within Excel converts the number correctly to 9,30000019073486 in my case.
Question: Can it be right that there's no way to mimic, or tap into, this functionality that Excel obviously is using when inserting the string into a cell?
I've searched for quite some time now, and I haven't found any solution other than the obvious: inserting the value into a cell. The problem here is that it's giving me some performance overhead which I would rather avoid.
You can swap the positions of the periods and commas in your input prior to casting as a double, in three steps:
Replace commas with 'X' (or some other value that won't appear in your data)
Replace periods with commas
Replace 'X' with periods

Comparing values with some alphanumerics

I've looked through the forums but couldn't find any questions (with answers) that helped. Any guidance would be appreciated.
I'm working on an Excel/Access project that cross references error codes. The codes are twelve digits long, with the first half and second half that need to be sortable. 99% of these codes are entirely numeric, but the 1% that includes letters is really screwing me up.
For example, a common error code might be "386748000123". This would be split into "386748" and "000123", with the first being the code for the type of system and the second being the type of error.
But then the 1% are something like this: "0957AB003A41". "0957AB", and "003A41".
If I format the columns (in Excel and Access) as numbers than the numeric comparisons are far easier, "000123" equals "123". If I format the column as strings than I can compare the alphanumeric values but then "000123" and "123" stop crossing.
The possible solution I've come across is utilizing the Val function inside an Access query to purely compare values but I've never used it and it seems like only a partial fix. Val ignores the strings, which means "0957AB" will have the same value as "0957XY" - and that doesn't work for this project.
I'm sure many of you have had similar issues, so I'm hoping to get some ideas on different ways the problem has been approached and resolved.
You have not provided a minimal sample of the data and also the output, also there is no code that I can amend it for you, but the only part that you are having problem is comparing the alphanumeric ones, you should format all of your data as strings and then compare. to make 123 be equal to "000123" you need to just format the numeric ones as string as below:
format(123,"000000")
which will give you "000123"
Edit
from you comment I learned that the problem is the key that is always or often a number, format will return the proper string for comparison, if it is already a 6-character string it will return itself so there would not be a problem:
do something like this:
if format(key,"0000000")=format(code,"000000") then
'do something
end if

Sharepoint: Calculated Column replace all spaces

Seems like it would be a simple thing really (and it may be), but I'm trying to take the string data of a column and then through a calculated column, replace all the spaces with %20's so that the HTML link in the workflow produced email will actually not break off at the first space.
For example, we have this in our source column:
file:///Z:/data/This is our report.rpt
And would like to end up with this in the calculated column:
file:///Z:/data/This%20is%20our%20report.rpt
Already used the REPLACE, and made up a ghastly super nested REPLACE/SEARCH version, but the problem there is that you have to nest for EACH potential space, and if you don't know how many up front, it doesn't work, or will miss some.
Have any of you come across this scenario and how did you handle it?
Thanks in advance!
As far as I know there is no generic solution using the calculated-column syntax. The standard solution for this situation is using an ItemAdded (/ItemUpdated) event and initializing the field value from code.
I was able to solve this issue for my circumstances by using a series of calculated columns.
In the first calculated column (C1) I entered a formula to remove the first space, something like this:
=IF(ISNUMBER(FIND(" ",[Title])),REPLACE([Title],FIND(" ",[Title]),1,"%20"),[Title])
In the second Calculated column (C2) I used:
=IF(ISNUMBER(FIND(" ",[C1])),REPLACE([C1],FIND(" ",[C1]),1,"%20"),[C1]).
In my case, I wanted to encode upto four spaces, so I used 3 calculated columns (C1, C2, C3) in the same fashion and got the desired result.
This is not as efficient as using a single calculated column, but if SUBSTITUTE will not work in your SharePoint environment, and you cannot use an event handler or workflow, it may offer a workable alternative.
I actually used a slightly different formula, but it was on a work machine to which I don't have access at the moment, so I just grabbed this formula from a similar S.O. question. Any formula that will replace the first occurrence of a space with "%20" will work, the trick is to a) make sure the formula returns the original string unchanged if it does not have more spaces in it, and b) test, test, test. Create a view of your list that has the field you are trying to encode, plus the calculated fields, and see if you are getting the results you want.
so that the HTML link in the workflow produced email will actually not break off at the first space.
The browser only does this if you have not enclosed your link in quotes
If you wrap the link in quotes, it does not cut off at the first space
In a SharePoint Formula it would be:
="""file:///Z:/data/This is our report.rpt"""
becuase two quotes are the SP escape notation to output a quote
You can use this formula (Start trim for 1, in my case was 4):
=IF(ISBLANK([EUR Amount]),"",(TRIM(MID([EUR Amount],4,2))&TRIM(MID([EUR Amount],6,2))&TRIM(MID([EUR Amount],8,2))&TRIM(MID([EUR Amount],10,2))&TRIM(MID([EUR Amount],12,2))&TRIM(MID([EUR Amount],14,2)))*1)

Resources