So does this mean you are trying to distinguish between INTEGER versus DECIMAL? Or are you distinguishing between a number and a text field?

Do you need a way to distinguish at run-time, or can you make the decision at design time?

A couple of options:

1. You can add fields in the XML structure to carry the design-time data type into the results at run-time. This is brute force but should work in limited cases.

2. If you're distinguishing between number and string, then the XML Schema approach I discussed earlier is viable.

3. If you're distinguishing between number and string, create a Functoid that examines the format, like many scripting languages do. If the string is parseable as a number, treat it as a number. Otherwise treat it as a string.

Hope this helps!

-Kirstan