On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 08:09:14 -0600, "James Plante" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > John Kane wrote: > > >On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 21:09:10 -0600, "Peter Kupfer OOo" > ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > > > > >>John Kane wrote: > >> > >> > >>>I am not quite sure how to suggest a change to Getting Started with Calc > >>>as it is a published chapter and I would like some comments on my > >>>proposed wording. Therefore I am posting it here and also providing a > >>>PDF file at http://www.mytempdir.com/322536 since my attempt to send it > >>>as a formated html message was a fiasco > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>I didn't follow the whole conversation closely, but do we know that the > >>behavior is as expected, or should an error be filed first? > >> > >> > > > >As far as I am concerned it is clearly an error and potentially a very > >serious one but then I am the one who brought it up. I have reported it > >as Issue #: 58903 . It does not seem to be getting a lot of attention. > >This may be because Excell and Quatro Pro are just as guilty of this > >type of behaviour. > > > > Below is an excerpt from the Calc Help: (this is almost the same as the > > text in the OOoAuthors' Getting Started with Calc chapter. > >----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >You can format numbers as text in OpenOffice.org Calc. Open the context > >menu of a cell or range of cells and choose Format Cells - Numbers, then > >select "Text" from the Category list. Any numbers subsequently entered > >into the formatted range are interpreted as text. The display of these > >"numbers" is left-justified, just as with other text. > > > >TIP When numbers are formatted as text, they cannot be used in > >calculations or formulas. > >operations will not work on it. It will either be ignored or will > >produce an error of some kind. > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >Unfortunately this is not true. Some mathematical operations on a text > >or string value will return an incorrect number with no warning. As a > >simple example type cat into cell A1 and dog into B1 > >Let C1 = A1* B1. C1 = 0. Or if A1 is 5 and B1 is fud then if C1 = > >A1 + B1 then C1=5. > > > >Somehow I have a problem believing that cat + dog = 0. > > > >You can see my calculations at http://www.mytempdir.com/360489 > > > >----- > > John Kane > > Kingston ON Canada > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > (613)888-2399 > > > > > > > Cat + dog = 0 may not make much sense. But 3 + 2 + equivalent + missing > + 6 = 11 makes perfect sense in some contexts. Assuming I have undertood you corrrectly, I agree. The difficulty is knowing that you are doing it. however it appears to me that we need a missing not a string variable that resets itsel to missing. You made me think of a simple test I tried A1='23 (text) , A2=5, A= 2
C1 = A1+A2+A3 = 7 C2=sum(A1:A3) = 7 Count(A1:A3)=2 In one way this is what we want (or intended) however there is no way except by manually adding the numbers to be sure that this is correct. And of course if we really intended A1 to be numeric, not text, there is nothing in either equation to warn of a mistake. > Treating a number as text > and giving it a value of 0 for calculation purposes is risky. A program > can test for content which is strictly numeric, and it's safe to assume > that those text numbers should be included in calculations in most > cases. But what about part numbers, serial numbers and such? Certainly > don't want those included in the count. This is essentially my worry. Accidentally adding a part number to a cost estimate may not be good buinsess. The Calc Help says we should not be able to do it but we can and with no warning. > > This "bug" isn't as straightforward as it might appear. No it is not and I consider it to be dangerous. I don't know that we can call it a 'bug'; perhaps more of a "design feature" since Quatro Pro and Excel seem to do similar things. ----- John Kane Kingston ON Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] (613)888-2399 -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Accessible with your email software or over the web
