Data type conversions

The Provider performs implicit type conversion when data is supplied as part of an insert or update. The following table is a summary of data type conversion in the Provider, when converting from the data type shown down the side of the table to the data type shown along the top of the table.

Yes indicates that conversion is allowed, with no restrictions.

Level and object types cannot be converted.

Data type	Double	Long	Text	Categorical	Date	Boolean
Double		Yes1	Yes	No	Yes3	Yes11
Long	Yes		Yes	Yes10	Yes3	Yes11
Text	Yes2	Yes2		Yes4	Yes5	Yes12
Categorical	No	No	Yes		No	Yes13
Date	Yes	Yes6	Yes7	No		Yes14
Boolean	Yes8	Yes8	Yes9	No	Yes8

2 Converted if the text can be interpreted as a number, otherwise conversion fails

3 Converted to a Date type. The Date type is implemented using an 8-byte floating-point number. Days are represented by whole number increments starting with 30 December 1899, midnight as time zero: for example, 4 January 1900, 9 P.M. becomes 5.875

4 Conversion succeeds if the text uses the categorical convention of curly braces and commas to delimit numeric values: for example, {2,3,8}.

5 Conversion succeeds if the string can be interpreted as valid date and time. The connection Locale ID affects whether the string format is acceptable for conversion to a date and time value.

7 Conversion uses the connection Locale ID to output the date and time using the short date and short time formats. If the date or time portions do not exist, they are not returned.

8 Conversion from Boolean to a numeric type results in 1 for True and 0 for False.

9 Conversion uses the connection Locale ID to output True or False in the selected language.

10 Conversion is not possible if the Long is a negative value.

11 The conversion results in a value of False if the numeric value is zero and a value of True for all other numeric values.

12 Conversion uses the connection Locale ID to parse the string and succeeds if it can be interpreted as a recognized Boolean value (numeric value or a string representing True or False).

13 The conversion results in a value of False if the categorical value is empty ({}) and a value of True for all other categorical values.

14 The conversion results in a value of False if the Date value is 30 December 1899 00:00:00 and a value of True for all other Date values.