Glide needs better handling of leading zeros / ZIP code pains

Report a Bug
1

There are roughly 3443 US zip codes with a leading zero, 230 with two leading zeros.

  • If a zip code is given conditional formatting (five zeros) in GS, the data editor displays 4 digits (shaves the 0)

  • If the zip code column is formatted as plain text before data is entered, the data editor displays all 5 digits.

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Using a number entry field

  • If no value is in that cell, and a zip code with a leading zero is entered:
    – Initially you get 5 digits in preview, 4 digits in data editor, 4 digits in Sheets.
    – On sync, you’ll get 4 digits across the board.

Using a text entry field

Leading zeros are preserved across preview, data editor, and GS; but text characters can be inadvertently entered.

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This is not a quirk suitable for a template column fix…

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2

Sure! I think that problem would be solved very easily if field masking were implemented on Glide. This would solve two problems: Validation and input formatting.

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3

Yup. UI improvements (e.g. status bars, spacers) are nice but this seems so essential. ZIP codes come with their own set of issues which I’ve been able to mitigate to a small extent on a small-state level via computed columns. But it’s not scalable for all 41,702 ZIPs without an alternative data source.

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5

5 years and the problem is still there. I need to verify IDs by using filtering and it’s reading “001” as “1”. so frustrating. did you ever find a solution to this?

6

You could probably use the Custom AI component to create an input that only accepts numbers, but still treats it as text to allow for leading zeros.

I’ve created a time duration entry like this that will only allow you to type numbers and only two digits for hours/minutes/seconds. Any other keyboard input is ignored, so you can get pretty granular as far as control.

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7

thank you for the suggestion Jeff, but I need it to support letters as well. So basically a text column that has data that is purely treated as a string.

Whenever I use “is” in filtering conditions, if I type in “1” the output still shows me “001” and vise versa. I want glide to know that they are 2 different records.

For example: Show if “Input” is “ID”
my input is “1”, yet it still shows me the ID “001” in my sheet.
Hope I explained well enough, English isn’t my 1st language. thanks again!

8

Ok, slightly off topic compared to this thread, but I can reproduce your issue. Your issue isn’t so much about text or numeric entry, but instead it’s about the fact that Glide’s filters ignore leading zero with Text type columns.

I suggest using the intercom chat in the lower right of the builder to report your issue to Glide Support.

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