Why am I getting E-03 when subtracting fields?

[MsAxes]

So I have two fields from two different tables. Both are number data type. I am subtracting to verify that they match and even though they do (ex. customer has 15646.23 in table 1 and 15646.23 in table 2) the result is not 0 as expected. I get -2.215654646E03.

Anyone know why? and what can I do to avoid this and just get zero difference when numbers match?

[Welshgasman]

I would hazard a guess that they are not same exactly?
Perhaps need to round to two decimal places?

[ranman256]

there are flavors of number. you want SINGLE or DOUBLE to handle decimals.

[Minty]

If the numbers are only specified to 2 decimal places you would be better to specify a Decimal number or use the currency number format.

Double and Single can and do suffer from rounding errors, which is what you are seeing as a difference.

[CJ_London]

or perhaps the fields are formatted to only display 2dp - remove the format and what do you see?

[MsAxes]

Thank you all for your comments. Both fields were Number data type (Double). Whats strange is that one of the fields was somehow returning 00.00000 although the data displayed the value as 00.00.

It was a simple fix though - I just used the round expression and that fixed the issue.

Thanks again