error converting varchar to float

Question

Getting an error converting varchar to float.

Have a table (not of my making) with column result, having varchar data. I\'d like to convert to float to

Answer 1

Check this out:

http://classicasp.aspfaq.com/general/what-is-wrong-with-isnumeric.html

Basically, there are some known issues / oddities with the ISNUMERIC function. The author of that article suggests creating a new function and using that instead of ISNUMERIC. I tested it with the 1,0 value you suggested and it seems to work.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.isReallyNumeric  
(  
    @num VARCHAR(64)  
)  
RETURNS BIT  
BEGIN  
    IF LEFT(@num, 1) = '-'  
        SET @num = SUBSTRING(@num, 2, LEN(@num))  

    DECLARE @pos TINYINT  

    SET @pos = 1 + LEN(@num) - CHARINDEX('.', REVERSE(@num))  

    RETURN CASE  
    WHEN PATINDEX('%[^0-9.-]%', @num) = 0  
        AND @num NOT IN ('.', '-', '+', '^') 
        AND LEN(@num)>0  
        AND @num NOT LIKE '%-%' 
        AND  
        (  
            ((@pos = LEN(@num)+1)  
            OR @pos = CHARINDEX('.', @num))  
        )  
    THEN  
        1  
    ELSE  
    0  
    END  
END  
GO