Format Number as Percent in Ms Sql Server
I Am Trying to Simply Format a Number as a Percent with Two Decimal Places. If It Is 37 Divided by 38 (Aka.973684210526315789), I Would Like It to Show 97.36 %...
I am trying to simply format a number as a percent with two decimal places. If it is 37 divided by 38 (aka .973684210526315789), I would like it to show 97.36 % in the SQL output. I know it is recommended to do formatting in the Application, however this is for an automated export. This is using SQL Server 2008.
Here is what I have now:
select CONVERT(VARCHAR(50),cast(37 as decimal)/cast(38 as decimal)*100)+' %' AS [%]
If you could explain what the various parameters are as well in any function that would be helpful.
7 Answers
In SQL Server 2012 and later, there is the FORMAT() function. You can pass it a 'P' parameter for percentage. For example:
SELECT FORMAT((37.0/38.0),'P') as [Percentage] -- 97.37 %
To support percentage decimal precision, you can use P0 for no decimals (whole-numbers) or P3 for 3 decimals (97.368%).
SELECT FORMAT((37.0/38.0),'P0') as [WholeNumberPercentage] -- 97 %
SELECT FORMAT((37.0/38.0),'P3') as [ThreeDecimalsPercentage] -- 97.368 %
M.Ali's answer could be modified as
select Cast(Cast((37.0/38.0)*100 as decimal(18,2)) as varchar(5)) + ' %' as Percentage
Using FORMAT function in new versions of SQL Server is much simpler and allows much more control:
FORMAT(yournumber, '#,##0.0%')
Benefit of this is you can control additional things like thousand separators and you don't get that space between the number and '%'.
SELECT cast( cast(round(37.0/38.0,2) AS DECIMAL(18,2)) as varchar(100)) + ' %'
RESULT: 0.97 %
And for all SQL Server versions
SELECT CAST(0.973684210526315789 * 100 AS DECIMAL(18, 2))
The issue that might rise is rounding issue.
.973684210526315789*100 -> 97.37 False
.973684210526315789*100 -> 97.36 True
there exist two approaches: String Functions and Numerical Functions
String Functions can avoid rounding issue, use functions such as CAST( equivalent CONVERT) and LEFT
SELECT LEFT(Cast(.973684210526315789*100 AS VARCHAR(100)), 5) + ' %'
SELECT LEFT(CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), .973684210526315789*100), 5) + ' %'
Numerical Functions might bring rounding issue, to avoid it use ROUND function
SELECT LEFT(Round(.973684210526315789*100, 2, 1), 5) + ' %'
to avoide using LEFT function(String Functions) use DECIMAL(18,2) and NUMERIC(18, 2) in cast and convert.
SELECT Concat(Cast(Round(.973684210526315789 * 100, 2, 1) AS DECIMAL(18, 2)),' %')
SELECT Concat(CONVERT(NUMERIC(10, 2), Round(.973684210526315789 * 100, 2, 1)),' %')
in addition you can use FORMAT, ###.## and 00.00 resemble integer part and fractional part and ###.## should be preferred to 00.00 since it can avoid zero values
SELECT FORMAT(Round(.973684210526315789*100, 2, 1), '######.#####')+ ' %' ---> 97.36%
SELECT FORMAT(Round(.973684210526315789*100, 2, 1), '00000.0000')+ ' %' ---> 00097.3600%
SELECT FORMAT(Round(.973684210526315789*100, 2, 1), '00.00')+ ' %' ---> 97.36%
took the challenge to solve this issue. comment number 5 (M.Ali) asked for --"The required answer is 97.36 % (not 0.97 %) .." so for that i'm attaching a photo who compare between post number 3 (sqluser) to my solution. (i'm using the postgre_sql on a mac)