MS Query中的Excel小数位

Question

Here is a confusing thing in Excel - I have looked around on Stackoverflow and other sites and cannot find a solution.

I extract a 3 decimal number from a text file (using VB.NET, but I don't think that is involved in the problem). I store this value as a single in and Access database - (I have tried double as well.)

I use MS Query to bring these 3 decimal place values into Excel. Although the starting text is clearly 3 decimals, in Excel there are added decimal places. For example:

Text file value: 
0.027
Stored in Access:
0.027
Value in Excel:
0.0270000007003546

I round the values to avoid confusion for others, but this can cause problems with some other programming that I do. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I believe the problem to be related to this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/78113

When storing numbers, a corresponding binary number can represent every number or fractional number. For example, the fraction 1/10 can be represented in a decimal number system as 0.1. However, the same number in binary format becomes the repeating binary decimal 0001100110011100110011 (and so on) and can be infinitely repeated. This number cannot be represented in a finite (limited) amount of space. Therefore, this number is rounded down by approximately -2.8E-17 when it is stored.

If would force Excel by setting an explicit rounding to solve the problem as both you and the documentation suggest.