[thelist] ASP/SQL Solution for Double Currency Web Site

Michele Foster michele at wordpro.on.ca
Wed Feb 21 19:09:12 CST 2001


Hi Folks ...

I would like to know how others handle currency differences on their web
sites.  This could also apply to differing tax rates.  But, for my example,
I'm wondering what the best approach it to displaying both Canadian and U.S.
prices on my web site.

At the moment, on the ASP pages that pull the data out of my database, I
have added the following code, which takes my CDN price and figures out the
approximate equivalent in US dollars, then I can easily display both values
on my web site.  Obviously, my database ONLY contains the Canadian dollars.

varCDNPrice = rst("Price")
varExRate = 0.7
varUSPrice = (varCDNPrice * varExRate)

Is the above reasonable?  Or am I better off having BOTH prices in my
database?  I don't see how this could be valuable.  As you'll see with my
next question.

I'm wondering if I should actually be storing my "varExRate" in my database?
The reason being, the Exchange Rate is used on several different ASP pages.
Plus, we all know exchange rates fluctuate, and there will be a time when
this rate will be changed.  Generally speaking, minor market fluctuations,
I'm not too concerned about.  My concern is that with "hard-coding" the
exchange rate into the ASP pages, when I need to update this rate, I'll have
to be sure to catch all the instances where it is used (memory being what it
is, I'll forget at least one instance).   [Same applies to tax rates
changing.]

So, what can I do?  What do others do?  If I put it in the DB, as its own
table, one record, this will require me to make a second call to the DB to
get this value out.. I think.  I don't believe I can use an "AND" within a
SELECT statement in SQL, but I could be mistaken on this.  (Current select
statement is:  "SELECT Pic, ItemNo, Description, MoldMfg, MoldNo, Price,
Size FROM ceramics ".)

Or, should I just drop this rate (essentially, the three lines of code
presented above), into an include file, then call the include file as needed
in the various ASP processing pages?  Seems simple enough to me??

Thanks in advance for guidance ....

Michele






More information about the thelist mailing list