I recently use the Macgyver technique to work around a MAX Verb issue. So I have two sets of computes that help me pivot my field names as well as their values to go from:

STATE    metric_a   metric_b   metric_c
NY          5          13.4      $14.54

To this
STATE  NY
metric_a  5
metric_b  13.4
metric_c  14.45

In some cases I want a decimal and in some I don't. Each metric had its own rules and has been pre-rounded to the correct precision prior to this. I have tried using PTOA and FTOA but it seems to want to make the converge to one format. This means my numbers that make no sense with .00 end up with them because that is the largest precision for another metric.

How do I tell it not to care and just make it a string regardless of precision?

It looks like on the pivot from the MacGyver if I were to do all new defines that to FTOA from each format to a string it would retain any numeric format. YIKES

Is there an easier way without telling it all 35 metric precision types?

You can change the format in the FTOA and PTOA function on the fly.

Try something like this:

DEFINE FILE CAR
FMT/A10 =
  IF RETAIL_COST GE 10000 THEN '(D12.2)' ELSE
  IF RETAIL_COST LT 10000 AND  RETAIL_COST GE 5000 THEN '(D12.1)' ELSE '(D12)';
TEXT/A20 = FTOA(RETAIL_COST,FMT,TEXT);
END
-RUN

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT
  FMT
  RETAIL_COST
  TEXT
BY CAR
END
-RUN

Here's an example where all your metrics would be in a subfoot.

DEFINE FILE CAR
M_CNT/I3     = 1;
M_SEAT/D5.1  = SEATS;
M_COST/D9.2M = RETAIL_COST;
M_FUEL/D7.2  = FUEL_CAP;
M_HEAD/A21   = 'CAR: ' | CAR;
END
TABLE FILE CAR
SUM
M_CNT NOPRINT
BY M_HEAD AS ''
ON M_HEAD NOSPLIT
ON M_HEAD SUBFOOT
"    METRIC A - # OF MODELS:   <M_CNT "
"    METRIC B - AVE. # SEATS:  <AVE.M_SEAT "
"    METRIC C - AVE. RET COST: <AVE.M_COST "
"    METRIC D - AVE. FUEL CAP: <AVE.M_FUEL "
" "
ON TABLE SET ONLINE-FMT PDF
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
TYPE=REPORT,
FONT='TIMES',
SIZE=9,
ORIENTATION=PORTRAIT,$
-*
TYPE=SUBFOOT,OBJECT=TEXT, JUSTIFY=LEFT,WIDTH=1.850,$
TYPE=SUBFOOT,OBJECT=FIELD,JUSTIFY=RIGHT,WIDTH=0.750,$
-*
ENDSTYLE
END

Jim

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

You will need to add the following fields to the subfoot lines of the previous post.

M_CNT
AVE.M_SEAT
AVE.M_COST
AVE.M_FUEL

They didn't show up when I pasted them into the post.

Jim