Issue 119586 - No error messages when SUM includes text?
Summary: No error messages when SUM includes text?
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: Calc
Classification: Application
Component: ui (show other issues)
Version: version58
Hardware: PC All
: P3 Major (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: AOO issues mailing list
QA Contact:
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-05-30 08:26 UTC by Jonathan
Modified: 2012-06-18 09:01 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---

Attachments
Minimal working example, excel file (6.55 KB, application/octet-stream)
2012-05-30 08:26 UTC, Jonathan 		no flags Details
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Description Jonathan 2012-05-30 08:26:26 UTC 
Created attachment 77802 [details]
Minimal working example, excel file

In Excel, a SUM which includes a (text? character? factor?) which looks like a number leads to an error state (small green triangle at top LHS of cell). Openoffice spreadsheet does not report any errors at all in a similar situation, I fell for this hook line and sinker with a recent set of calculations involving spreadsheets sent to me by other people (some apparently numeric data was not numeric). SUM operates differently to "+", I assume this is an Excel-related "feature"...

I have attached a minimal working example which highlights this issue, in a real-world application the inclusion of non-numeric numbers is near impossible to spot. I can't easily spot a bug report but search terms are non-obvious.

I would like to see an obvious error alert/report in the spreadsheet.
Comment 1 Li Feng Wang 2012-06-14 05:25:50 UTC 
can reproduce with AOO3.4 release version(r1327774).
Comment 2 Regina Henschel 2012-06-14 16:37:19 UTC 
In ODF1.2 says, that when using a range, texts are ignored and no converting is done. Using a single cell and + operator a converting is done. So the calculation of AOO is correct in respect to the standard. (ODF1.2 part 2, sections 6.3.7 and 6.16.61)

The green mark in Excel is a warning. AOO does not has the ability to show a warning. So I would say, this is a request for enhancement.
Comment 3 Regina Henschel 2012-06-17 18:41:23 UTC 
Please have a look at issue 91546. Would that address your request?
Comment 4 Jonathan 2012-06-18 09:01:53 UTC 
Hi Regina,

Issue 91546 would address my request. I note that the way Excel reports errors is totally dumb, as they are reported in the input not the output. If I have several hundred or several thousand inputs for one "SUM" I cannot reasonably look through them all - if I could I would not be doing a SUM. I would therefore suggest that AOO displays an error message both in the input cells AND ALSO in the output cell for a calculation with unusual input.

Jonathan.