Decimal values in SQL for dividing results

Question

In SQL, I have col1 and col2. Both are integers.

I want to do like:

select col1/col2 from tbl1 

I get the result 1 where col1=3 and col2=2

The result I want is 1.1

I put round(col1/col2,2). The result is still 1.

I put decimal(col1/col2,2). The decimal is not built in function.

How can I do exactly to get 1.1?

Answer 1

Just another approach:

SELECT col1 * 1.0 / col2 FROM tbl1 

Multiplying by 1.0 turns an integer into a float numeric(13,1) and so works like a typecast, but most probably it is slower than that.

A slightly shorter variation suggested by Aleksandr Fedorenko in a comment:

SELECT col1 * 1. / col2 FROM tbl1 

The effect would be basically the same. The only difference is that the multiplication result in this case would be numeric(12,0).

Principal advantage: less wordy than other approaches.

Answer 2

You will need to cast or convert the values to decimal before division. Take a look at this http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa226054.aspx

For example

DECLARE @num1 int = 3 DECLARE @num2 int = 2  SELECT @num1/@num2  SELECT @num1/CONVERT(decimal(4,2), @num2) 

The first SELECT will result in what you're seeing while the second SELECT will have the correct answer 1.500000