When using ArMap and performing a select by attributes I am unable to get negative numbers to work?

Question

I'm trying to select census tracts whose popualtion growth was less than zero but it seems arcmap is only reading the numeric value- for example a tract that lost 75 people is reading as just 75. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

When you're creating a table in ArcMap, you have to make sure that the data type in the field is appropriate for the information you are going to be storing.

So, if you need a field that contains negative numbers, the data type you would select for that field would be either an integer, float or a double...depending on the amount of significant digits you need.

If all else fails, checkout the ESRI support page.. support.esri.com

I hope this helps :)