Re: SQL Casting/Exponential Notation

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 1:28 PM, Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Also check the STRDLM   parm of CPYTOIMPF....the IBM default is
*DBLQUOTE, but perhaps somebody is changing it.  Otherwise Excel is
being really stupid....which wouldn't surprise me :)

If you let Excel open a CSV the way it naturally does (for example, by
double-clicking the CSV), the quotes will do you no good. In fact,
Excel will even try to format your data for you if you do that.

For example, if your CSV has the following:

"3600"

Excel will give you the number 3600. If instead your CSV has

"3,600"

Excel will give you the number 3600, formatted with thousands separator!

The other "solution" you mentioned, of doing a manual import into
Excel, is a viable way to protect character data, but is extremely
cumbersome. I would not ask my users to do this (even assuming they
could be trained to do so reliably), and I would not have the patience
to do it myself more than one or two times.

John