The system function mathLib.stringAsDecimal accepts a character value (like "98.6") and returns the equivalent value as a DECIMAL type. If the input is non-numeric, the function returns a null value.
If the character value to be converted is null or blank, the return value depends on the value of the I4GLItemsNullable property (see i4glItemsNullable). If I4GLItemsNullable is set to YES, the function returns a null value; otherwise the function returns 0. This behavior is the reason to use mathLib.stringAsDecimal rather than making a simple assignment (see Assignments). If you assign a blank value to a DECIMAL variable, EGL will throw an exception.
mathLib.stringAsDecimal(numberAsText STRING in) returns (result DECIMAL nullable)