Dealing with Negative numbers that use ()

tgb417

I have a dataset coming in with negative numbers being represented in an accounting fashion with leading and trailing parentheses. For example (200) equals -200.

Anyone have a quick way to clean that up in a visual recipie?

The Extract Number Processor does not resolve this issue.

I'm using DSS 8.0.4.

Ignacio_Toledo

Hi @tgb417

I just tried this approach, with a find and replace step, and it does work for me:

Hope it helps!

tgb417

I ended up writing this complicated formula.

if(contains(strval("Sum of Total Received"), '('), 
concat("-",substring(strval("Sum of Total Received"),1,length(strval("Sum of Total Received"))-1)),
numval("Sum of Total Received"))

However, that is sort of a pain. Anyone have a faster way to deal with this challange.

tgb417

@Ignacio_Toledo
, This is good, you can do this in just one recipe step. My approach took 4 steps per column to get the names of columns back the way they were using my method.

And even better you can do this on multiple columns with the same step.

Bravo!

I've tested and can reproduce your approach.

CoreyS

Based off of this wonderful thread we have published a Knowledge Base article: Dealing with Accounting-style negative numbers

Thank you both for your help!