problem with complex expression

[kellyroberts]

Hi All -

oiy! this one is a pain.  I have a column in a dataset that is technically string but in reality has both string and numeric values.  well I want to test for numeric values ... and then format accordingly. so for example suppose i have a dataset that goes ...

10
20
30
apple
40
50

I want the format to be currency. here is my expression.  *IsNumeric is a UDF that simply wraps Microsoft.VisualBasic.IsNumeric.*

=iif(IsNumeric(Fields.[YTD Target]),Format("{0:c}",CDbl(Fields.[YTD Target])),Fields.[YTD Target])

well the report bombs on 'apple' citing 'Input was not in correct format.

The only thing I can figure is that both True and False parts are fully evaluated when IIF is called.. so in the case of 'apple' the True part will surely fail eventhough isNumeric("apple") = False

[Peter]

Hello kellyroberts,

The experienced behavior is correct and by design. As you can see IIF() is a Function and you need to prepare the parameters prior to executing the function. 

That's why the reporting engine first evaluates the function parameters and then pass the values to the function. 

Our suggestion would be to use an User Function instead of IIF as shown in the code snippet:

Public Shared Function CustomFormat(ByVal value As String) As String
    If IsNumeric(value) Then
        Return FormatCurrency(Convert.ToDouble(value))
    Else
        Return value
    End If
End Function

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

All the best,
Peter
the Telerik team

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