str2Num doesn’t work as expected

If you are trying to convert a string to a decimal, you might notice that it doesn’t always work. It is very sensitive on the formatting of the string.

Input	Output (str2Num)	Output (str2NumOk)	System.Convert::ToDecimal(strValue);
1 23	1	false	catch the exception as nothing is resolved
1abc	1	false	catch the exception as nothing is resolved
1,123.00	1	false	123.00

You can use the method str2NumOk() to check

Alternatively, you could use the .NET system method to convert the string to a decimal. This handles conversions a little better.

real   decimalValue = System.Convert::ToDecimal(strValue);

Sample job code to test it out the third example.

static void testStringToNumeric(Ar  gs _args)
{
    str     strValue;
    real    realValue;   strValue = "1,123.00";
    print str2num(strValue); //returns 1
    print str2NumOk(strValue); //returns false
    try
    {
        realValue = System.Convert::ToDecimal(strValue);
        print realValue;
    }
    catch
    {
        print "caught"; 
    }   pause;   }

Reference:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hf9z3s65.aspx