topic Re: text or numerical using in conditions in QlikView

text or numerical using in conditions

maxsheva — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:19:17 GMT

Hi Qlik Community,

Would you please advise whether is difference on performance what using in conditions text or numerical?

I might be great if updated documentation somewhere is.

This below is just an example but let's suppose millions of rows.

data:

LOAD * Inline [

field_code, field_name, value

1, name, 100

];

sum({<field_code={'1'}>} value)

sum({<field_name={'name'}>} value)

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

sunny_talwar — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 13:17:58 GMT

Few people who might have an idea or two about this would be

pcammaert‌

rwunderlich‌

hic‌

troyansky‌

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

Anil_Babu_Samineni — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 13:26:37 GMT

As per rules from my architect and Data scientist notified Numeric is bit efficient rather than String which called "String storing considering Byte with each character where number is only one byte". this is what i got comment from them

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

Colin-Albert — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 13:30:18 GMT

Hi Max,

This post should give some insights...

String Key vs Integer Key -- any difference in link performance?

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

Peter_Cammaert — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 17:10:33 GMT

Aside from delivering a more compact data model, I seem to remember Stephen Redmond mentioning somewhere that sequential integers may do away with the symbol table altogether. I've never experienced that the document becomes much quicker, let alone when set analysis prepares a reduced data set.

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

maxsheva — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 22:00:04 GMT

Thanks everyone for response.

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

rwunderlich — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 02:19:19 GMT

In my testing, there is no difference in String vs Numeric performance in a set analysis modifier. Both of these would perform the same:

sum({<field_code={1}>} value)

sum({<field_name={'name'}>} value)

In other contexts, such as an if(), numeric comparisons are significantly faster.

sum(if(ExpressShipNum=1, LineTotal))

is much faster than:

sum(if(ExpressShipText='Yes', LineTotal))

-Rob

http://masterssummit.com

http://qlikviewcookbook.com

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

maxsheva — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 12:52:19 GMT

Thank you for experience sharing.

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

Oleg_Troyansky — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 22:53:24 GMT

I can repeat what Rob said - no difference in Set Analysis and a lot of difference when using IF() conditions.

Also, as others commented earlier - string fields would require more memory and storage size than numeric fields, so every time there is a choice what type of field to use, I'd prefer numeric fields - especially if the field has many distinct values. With just a few distinct values, the difference is negligible.

best,

Oleg Troyansky

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

rwunderlich — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:50:03 GMT

Peter,

It's correct that sequential integers do not use a symbol table. That can significantly reduce RAM requirements if there are many unique values for the field, typical with keys.

-Rob

Re: text or numerical using in conditions

maxsheva — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 10:54:16 GMT

Thanks for your opinion.