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http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=48335
------- Additional comments from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon May 2 19:26:20 -0700
2005 -------
Firstly, thanks I now know where we are, I think I may even understand what you
think 'one issue one issue report' means and will endeavour to comply.
(probably by making feature requests.)
Alan
=== first revisit how many issues this is for a moment. (pls ignore/skip to ===)
It is your world, from now on, after this one, I will not add amy more comments
to this issue re: anything other than ' inside "" unless asked to.
In my view it is not reasonable to consider this issue piecemeal especially
when
I think one line of code could fix the whole issue. Hence I thought this is a
bug fix rather than a feature request.
I think the issue may however have moved focus, you say "Up to now it is a
clear
strategy to handle CSV content identical to input via the keyboard."
In that case the bug is that when saving the csv file the data is not correctly
reverse translated from text cell 'Here is my text' into "''Here is my text'"
If in reading *and* writing csv (as you said) "CSV content identical to input
via the keyboard" then surely by symmetry fields must be translated on writing
into the text that would have to be inputed to produce this field. While that
is
a self consistent plan I would refrain from calling it csv. Perhaps that format
is CSUI comma separated user input.
=== Now to the topic at hand. (repeats the above a bit I am afraid, but I did
ask you to skip that bit as an aside.)
I accept that it is possible to, decide that treating input from csv
identically
to user typed input is one strategy, and although it is not what I want today
it
is a strategy. In that case however I would expect that the process that output
to csv mirrored this concept as far as is possible.
Thus when a text cell, is output to a file, it would be printed out as the text
that should be input to achieve the same result. Thus, a text cell would have a
single ' prepended on output. (Dont do this it is a bad idea, which is why it
is the reading code I claimed was faulty.)
Consider the following user story.
A User types ''Here is my text' into open office in cell a1. (first ' removed)
cell a1 is text and contains 'Here is my text'. (all good so far)
It is saved to file. (Sure on closing the document we get a warning that some
information may have been lost. I expect formulas and all sorts of stuff to go,
but I do expect it (OOo) to perform as well as the evil alternatives.)
User Opens the csv file in vi shows "'here is my text'" as contents. Good
thinks
the User, there is my data.
User Open the csv file in Open Office and the leading ' is missing. Hmmmmmm.
Yes Open Office can read csv files, but it cant read the ones it wrote.
In particular it deletes, ' inside "" reads in "1.0" as a numeric 1
Yes it happens with dates too type '23 may 2005 into a1 save as csv
Look in vi Yep there it is as "23 may 2005".
Load the csv file with, OOo and save as csv again (because you want to change
some other field) and it has changed a1 to 23/05/2003.
Yes if the whole column is text we can specify that in the GUI, each and every
time we open the file.
If OOo had the same file defintion for reading as writing csv then it would
respect the "" surrounding any field and treat it as a text cell. It would
communicate this intention to the GUI by prepending a ' (patch 1)(or through a
modified interface patch 2)
If OOo had the same file defintion for writing as reading csv (note order
change) then when writing csv it would write down what a user should type in
,in order to get this cell contents. ie it would write down a leading ' inside
the "". (note this is not an advocated feature and has real problems)
As it appears this is not a bug, but perhaps a future requirement, I would
suggest you (OO org) make it a priority. I think it is a serious issue when
OOo is less compatable with the open csv standard than the evil propriatory
alternative. (yes there is no official standard, but there is standard practise
and there is the follwoign measure of merit.) OOo is less compatable because
there are many fewer files that it can export to csv and then read back in and
get the same content. If the evil alternative did this I would shout abuse.
If and when this requirement is to be spec'd and made a feature I am prepared
to
put my neck on the line and contribute, and probably answer any complaints
about what I think csv format is, or whether my code works as intended.
(there is a rasonable chance I will have a local working version by then anyway.
)
Permanent Contact Details.
alan aiaware.com will (with the obvious change,insert @) when the server is
fixed reach me.
alan aiaware_nimda.hotpop.com is my domain contact and is getting spammed and
will be moved as soon as I fix my email server.
To find my email addr, at any time in the future (as long as the rules say I
have to) do a domain name register search for aiaware.com at (currently
godaddy)
and contact the doamin name owner (me)
TTFN Alan
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