Decimal separators

AQT behaves in the following way:

• columns defined as FLOAT or REAL are formatted by AQT. In this case the Windows Decimal Separator will be used to format the number.
• columns defined as DECIMAL or NUMBER are formatted by your ODBC driver, rather than by AQT. Whether these show the correct Decimal Separator is determined by the capabilities of your ODBC driver. Most databases do format the number correctly, however we cannot guarantee this.
• for Oracle, the display of numeric fields is determined by the NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS session variable. You can set this with a statement such as: alter session set NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS=',.'

Numeric literals

To further complicate matters, most databases do not recognise a comma Decimal Separator in numeric literals.

This means: if you are specifying a numeric value in a Where clause, you must specify it with a fullstop, irrespective of what you have set as your Windows Decimal Seperator. The same applies for numeric values coded in Insert and Update statements.

AQT helps you use the correct format for a numeric literals; when you use List Values to display the values of a numeric column, AQT will display it using a fullstop instead of a comma. Similarly, when you go into Update Mode, AQT will automatically change all your numeric values to have a fullstop. These features will ensure that your numeric literals will be specified in the correct format.