SQL error - Cannot convert nvarchar to decimal

Question

I have a C# application that simply parses all of the txt documents within a given network directory and imports the data to a SQL server db. Everything was cruising along just fine until about the 1800th file when it happend to have a few blanks in columns that are called out as DBType.Decimal (and the value is usually zero in the files, not blank). So I got this error, "cannot convert nvarchar to decimal". I am wondering how I could tell the app to simply skip the lines that have this issue?? Perhaps I could even just change the column type to varchar even tho values are numbers (what problems could this create?) Thanks for any help!

using System; 
using System.Data; 
using System.Data.SQLite; 
using System.IO;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Threading;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Data.SqlClient;


namespace JohnDeereCMMDataParser 
{ 
    internal class Program 
    {


        public static List<string> GetImportedFileList()
        {
            List<string> ImportedFiles = new List<string>();
            using (SqlConnection connect = new SqlConnection(@"Server=FRXSQLDEV;Database=RX_CMMData;Integrated Security=YES"))
            {
                connect.Open();
                using (SqlCommand fmd = connect.CreateCommand())
                {

                    fmd.CommandText = @"SELECT FileName FROM CMMData;";
                    fmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
                    SqlDataReader r = fmd.ExecuteReader();
                    while (r.Read())
                    {
                        ImportedFiles.Add(Convert.ToString(r["FileName"]));

                    }
                }
            }
            return ImportedFiles;
        } 




        private static void Main(string[] args) 
        {


            Console.Title = "John Deere CMM Data Parser";
            Console.WriteLine("Preparing CMM Data Parser... done");
            Console.WriteLine("Scanning for new CMM data...");
            Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Gray;

            using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(@"Server=FRXSQLDEV;Database=RX_CMMData;Integrated Security=YES"))
            {


                con.Open();

                using (SqlCommand insertCommand = con.CreateCommand())
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Connecting to SQL server...");
                    SqlCommand cmdd = con.CreateCommand();
                    string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(@"C:\Documents and Settings\js91162\Desktop\CMM WENZEL\", "*_*_*.txt", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
                    List<string> ImportedFiles = GetImportedFileList();
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@FeatType", DbType.String));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@FeatName", DbType.String));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Axis", DbType.String));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Actual", DbType.Decimal));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Nominal", DbType.Decimal));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Dev", DbType.Decimal));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@TolMin", DbType.Decimal));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@TolPlus", DbType.Decimal));
                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@OutOfTol", DbType.Decimal));

                    foreach (string file in files.Except(ImportedFiles))

                    {
                        var FileNameExt1 = Path.GetFileName(file);
                        cmdd.Parameters.Clear();
                        cmdd.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@FileExt", FileNameExt1));
                        cmdd.CommandText =
                            @" 
                    IF (EXISTS (SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'RX_CMMData' AND TABLE_NAME = 'CMMData')) BEGIN SELECT COUNT(*) FROM CMMData WHERE FileName = @FileExt; END";



                        int count = Convert.ToInt32(cmdd.ExecuteScalar());
                        con.Close();
                        con.Open();

                        if (count == 0)
                        {




                                Console.WriteLine("Preparing to parse CMM data for SQL import...");
                                if (file.Count(c => c == '_') > 5) continue;

                                insertCommand.CommandText =
                                    @"
                    INSERT INTO CMMData  (FeatType, FeatName, Axis, Actual, Nominal, Dev, TolMin, TolPlus, OutOfTol, PartNumber, CMMNumber, Date, FileName) 
                    VALUES     (@FeatType, @FeatName, @Axis, @Actual, @Nominal, @Dev, @TolMin, @TolPlus, @OutOfTol, @PartNumber, @CMMNumber, @Date, @FileName);";







                                string FileNameExt = Path.GetFullPath(file);


                                string RNumber = Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(file);
                                int index2 = RNumber.IndexOf("~");
                                Match RNumberE = Regex.Match(RNumber, @"^(R|L)\d{6}(COMP|CRIT|TEST|SU[1-9])(?=_)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

                                Match RNumberD = Regex.Match(RNumber, @"(?<=_)\d{3}[A-Z]\d{4}|\d{3}[A-Z]\d\w\w\d(?=_)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

                                Match RNumberDate = Regex.Match(RNumber, @"(?<=_)\d{8}(?=_)", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
                                string RNumE = Convert.ToString(RNumberE);
                                string RNumD = Convert.ToString(RNumberD);


                                if (RNumberD.Value == @"") continue;
                                if (RNumberE.Value == @"") continue;
                                if (RNumberDate.Value == @"") continue;
                                if (index2 != -1) continue;




                                DateTime dateTime = DateTime.ParseExact(RNumberDate.Value, "yyyyMMdd", Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture);
                                string cmmDate = dateTime.ToString("dd-MMM-yyyy");


                                string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(file);
                                bool parse = false;

                                foreach (string tmpLine in lines)
                                {


                                    string line = tmpLine.Trim();
                                    if (!parse && line.StartsWith("Feat. Type,"))
                                    {
                                        parse = true;
                                        continue;
                                    }
                                    if (!parse || string.IsNullOrEmpty(line))
                                    {
                                        continue;
                                    }



                                    Console.WriteLine(tmpLine);
                                    foreach (SqlParameter parameter in insertCommand.Parameters)
                                    {
                                        parameter.Value = null;
                                    }

                                    string[] values = line.Split(new[] { ',' });

                                    for (int i = 0; i < values.Length - 1; i++)
                                    {
                                        if (i = "" || i = null) continue;
                                        SqlParameter param = insertCommand.Parameters[i];
                                        if (param.DbType == DbType.Decimal)
                                        {
                                            decimal value;
                                            param.Value = decimal.TryParse(values[i], out value) ? value : 0;
                                        }
                                        else
                                        {
                                            param.Value = values[i];
                                        }
                                    }


                                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@PartNumber", RNumE));
                                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@CMMNumber", RNumD));
                                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Date", cmmDate));
                                    insertCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@FileName", FileNameExt));
                                    insertCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();

                                      insertCommand.Parameters.RemoveAt("@PartNumber");
                                     insertCommand.Parameters.RemoveAt("@CMMNumber");
                                     insertCommand.Parameters.RemoveAt("@Date");
                                    insertCommand.Parameters.RemoveAt("@FileName");

                                }


                            }

                                }  
                        Console.WriteLine("CMM data successfully imported to SQL database...");

                    }
                    con.Close();

            }
        } 
    } 
} 

Answer 1

A blank apperently isn't parsed as Decimal, so you probably have to define a default value of 0.0 in the database, or check the input and replace any blanks with 0.0. Don't try to circumvent the issue by changing the datatype, solve the issue by sanatizing the input.