Please, When i am using the statement, SELECT location, date, total_cases, total_deaths, (total_deaths /total_cases) FROM CovidPortfolioProject..coviddeaths I'm getting an error

Question

When I execute this code below,

I get the error Msg 8117, Level 16, State 1, Line 17 Operand data type nvarchar is invalid for divide operator.

select location, date, total_cases, total_deaths, (total_deaths / total_cases)*100 as DeathPercent

from ProjectPortfolio..CovidDeaths

order by 1,2

What can I do to move forward? I am in transition into data analysis.

Answer 1

Hi @Brenan ADAOBI

Operand data type nvarchar is invalid for divide operator.

The error message you got is clear enough. You can apply divide calculation only on numeric data, not on string value. It seems that total_deaths or total_cases are Nvarchar type. You may have to convert the strings to numeric first.

Try this:

select location, date, total_cases, total_deaths, (CONVERT(DECIMAL(18,2), total_deaths) / CONVERT(DECIMAL(18,2), total_cases) )*100 as DeathPercent
from ProjectPortfolio..CovidDeaths
order by 1,2

Best regards,

Cosmog Hong

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Answer 2

Try the following:

select location, date, total_cases, total_deaths, (try_cast(total_deaths as decimal(12,2)) / NULLIIF(try_cast(total_cases as int),0))*100 as DeathPercent
from ProjectPortfolio..CovidDeaths
order by 1,2