In a form, I've got an item that's displayed as "Number Type". Since this item will show large numbers, I set the format mask to "999G999G999G999G999G999G990". This works fine, until the form is submitted. Since the data is coming from a rather complex view, I'm using a PL/SQL process to save the data, rather than automated row processing. However, if I use :P5_TOTAL or v('P5_TOTAL'), I get an error if there's a comma in the field value.
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error: character to number conversion error
Is there a way to get the "true" numeric value of the field without pushing the value through a to_number call (which errors if the user doesn't put a comma in)?
My only thought at this point is to create a second hidden page item with a format mask of "999999999999999999990" and use a dynamic action to keep it synchronized with the visible one, but that seems a lot of work for something which I'm hoping APEX provides somewhat automatically...
Thanks,
-David