Hi Eike,
Eike Rathke wrote (8-8-2008 13:55)
BUT then implement a mechanism to detect these string-cells and
easily convert them to numbers
And here we come back to Cor Nouws again. Cor, you wrote an extension to
convert such numbers,
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/CT2N
I didn't try the latest version with bells and whistles for different
locales yet, but I assume that your extension is almost _exactly_ what
we need.
Thanks for considering. I would like to emphasize _almost_ , maybe even
as an understatement.
When Calc will generate an error for such cells when used in
arithmetic operations, it would even be possible to enhance the
extension to make use of the detective to track down the source of the
error and point the user to original problem.
Yes that would be possible. Plus that it would speed up the work of the
extension :-)
Few remarks:
1 The bells and whistles have a lot to do with strange situations that
people want to have solved. Mixed use of decimal separators, for
example... (but I read in your last paragraph, skipped in this mail,
that you know enough causes of textual numbers).
2 Quite some digging is done to prevent unwanted conversion of certain
numbers to dates.
(So the generated error might need to distinct between various situations.)
3 As the extension is now, it does a nice job in al sorts of
conversions, but does not fully solve the problem of people concerned
with Ms interoperability.
a. It does not (yet) distinct between text-numbers used in A1+A2 and
used in (A1:A2). Thus when just all text-strings are converted,
the result might be different from what Excel shows. (Not to
speak about all that can happen with use of wrong decimal
separators.)
b. It does not (yet) solve the problem that Excel gives the
#VALUE-error message and that OOo considers text-cells to have
a 0-value.
People that know the possible problems with the Excel-way of handling
text-numbers, can perfectly do their job with the extension. But can we
expect that from all users ;-)
Therefore the Options to (only) mark cells, make it possible to have a
look at what is or can be converted.
And implementation of 3a en 3b plus clear user documentation (as you may
have noticed, it is only recent that I better understand the differences
Calc end Excel) are needed. That would give quite some extra work.
I would like if we bundled your extension with the released product at
some point in future, but unfortunately you released it under GPLv2 that
is incompatible with LGPLv3. Any plans to change that?
Didn't consider that yet, but won't be a problem.
If you think further work in this direction is useful, I might set up a
wiki-page to discuss technical details of the extension (if the OOo
wikiservices would be so kind to host it ;-) )
Kindest regards,
Cor
--
"The Year of 3" -2008- "Het jaar van 3"
Cor Nouws - Arnhem - Netherlands
> marketing contact - http://nl.OpenOffice.org
> Zeker van OpenOffice.org - www.nouenoff.nl
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