Int to String formula expression (Pentaho Report Designer)

Question

I'm attempting to write a formula expression in Pentaho Report Designer 3.9. The expression will take the SEMIANNUAL1_VALUE attribute which is an int or number-field and display "N/A" when the value is -1. Below is the expression I currently have that is not working.

=IF([SEMIANNUAL1_VALUE] = -1 ; TEXT("N/A"); [SEMIANNUAL1_VALUE] )

I have this expression in the "value field" in Pentaho Report Designer which should handle this exception. Your help is appreciated.

Answer 1

You have the solution wrong. You can't have code that in one hand returns a string, on the other returns a number. Thats never sensible! Think in the case where you wanted to use this field in further expressions later on etc - not just the case of displaying the field on the report.

The solution is simply to return NA() rather than TEXT("N/A") Which will return null. Then set the ifnull flag on the numeric field to be "N/A". That works. Because ifnull is just the display property of the field this works fine.