From: Dan Nelson
Date: September 28 2006 8:00pm
Subject: Re: making varchar field to act like numeric field
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/202200
Message-Id: <20060928200024.GG45831@dan.emsphone.com>
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In the last episode (Sep 28), Steve Musumeche said:
> I think this method will work, however, when trying these queries, I get 
> a SQL syntax error.
> 
> mysql> select cast('34' AS decimal);
> ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the 
> manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right 
> syntax to use near 'decimal)' at line 1

The CAST function in mysql 4.1 and older can't cast to DECIMAL.  5.0
and newer can.  One easy way to convert strings to numbers in older
mysql's is to add 0 to them:

mysql> select ("1.10" + 0);
+------------+
| "1.10" + 0 |
+------------+
|        1.1 | 
+------------+

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson@stripped