A method for conversion between a decimal floating-point number and an order-preserving format has been disclosed. The method encodes numbers in the decimal floating-point format into a format which preserves value ordering. This encoding allows for fast and direct string comparison of two values. Such an encoding provides normalized representations for decimal floating-point numbers and supports type-insensitive comparisons. Type-insensitive comparisons are often used in database management systems, where the data type is not specified for values to compare. In addition, the original decimal floating-point format can be recovered from the order-preserving format.