Microsoft KB Archive/185424

= How To Convert a Fraction to a Decimal Number =

Article ID: 185424

Article Last Modified on 11/23/2006

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications 5.0

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This article was previously published under Q185424



SUMMARY
This article provides a routine to convert a string that contains a fraction in the form "a," "a/b," or "a b/c" into a double precision floating-point number.



MORE INFORMATION
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Sometimes it is more convenient to input values as fractions instead of decimal numbers. The following routine converts a string containing a fraction to a decimal number:   Create a new Visual Basic for Applications project and add the following code to a module:

Sample Code
Function Frac2Num(ByVal X As String) As Double Dim P As Integer, N As Double, Num As Double, Den As Double X = Trim$(X) P = InStr(X, "/") If P = 0 Then N = Val(X) Else Den = Val(Mid$(X, P + 1)) If Den = 0 Then Error 11   ' Divide by zero X = Trim$(Left$(X, P - 1)) P = InStr(X, " ") If P = 0 Then Num = Val(X) Else Num = Val(Mid$(X, P + 1)) N = Val(Left$(X, P - 1)) End If        End If         If Den <> 0 Then N = N + Num / Den End If        Frac2Num = N      End Function  In the Debug/Immediate window, test:

? Frac2Num("5 3/4"), Frac2Num("2/8")

Result: 5.75 0.25

Note: Numbers in the input string do not have to be whole numbers. They can contain decimal values and negative numbers.

