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JohnD's avatar
JohnD
Qrew Trainee
4 months ago

How to keep the trailing zeros in a numeric field

Hi folks,

I am trying to create a database of regulations and the app keep dropping the trailing zeros.  However, for my purposes, they are critical.  In world of regulations, 820.1 is different from 820.10 and 820.100.

Thus, I can't just tell it to go to three decimals or those will all look the same.

Is there a way to do this?

  • Are you looking to keep the trailing zeros when looking at them in Quickbase, or when downloading to a CSV?

    If in quickbase, I would make it a text field, verse a numeric. Is there a reason you need it numeric? Typically, numeric is only necessary if you need to perform calculations.

    If in a CSV download, I just asked them same question a week ago. In short, I do not believe you can keep the trailing zero in the CSV download. I have found two, unsatisfactory fixes. One, is to make the field a currency field. That keeps the trailing zeros but of course adds a dollar sign. However, this won't work in your case since you have differing amounts of decimal places. The other way i did it was making a formula that added an apostrophe to the beginning of the number. This way the download saw it as text, and kept the trailing zero. Again, not a satisfactory solution....

    If you find another solution to the CSV download, please let me know!

  • JohnD's avatar
    JohnD
    Qrew Trainee

    Ack!  I mis-titled - it should be trailing zeros in a NUMERIC field.  Great first post, eh?

  • Are you looking to keep the trailing zeros when looking at them in Quickbase, or when downloading to a CSV?

    If in quickbase, I would make it a text field, verse a numeric. Is there a reason you need it numeric? Typically, numeric is only necessary if you need to perform calculations.

    If in a CSV download, I just asked them same question a week ago. In short, I do not believe you can keep the trailing zero in the CSV download. I have found two, unsatisfactory fixes. One, is to make the field a currency field. That keeps the trailing zeros but of course adds a dollar sign. However, this won't work in your case since you have differing amounts of decimal places. The other way i did it was making a formula that added an apostrophe to the beginning of the number. This way the download saw it as text, and kept the trailing zero. Again, not a satisfactory solution....

    If you find another solution to the CSV download, please let me know!

  • JohnD's avatar
    JohnD
    Qrew Trainee

    Thanks for your reply and this is what I ended up doing since, as you mention, I am not doing any kind of calculations on that field.  It is just that the engineer in me recoils at the inaccuracy :).   I may need to create a hidden sort field but that is not too difficult.  Again, thanks!