[mdlug] Why is a blank cell != zero value in OpenOffice-Calc 3.5

[Jeff Hanson]

With shell scripts the "test" command (aka. "[") treats nulls as strings so
it may be a general programming convention.


On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 6:06 PM, R KANNAN <rk111810 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:56 PM, R KANNAN <rk111810 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 5:44 PM, R KANNAN <rk111810 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > OpenOffice Users,
> > >> >
> > >> > I opened an exiting (from OO 2.2)  spreadsheet in Oo-Calc 3.5 aand
> > found
> > >> a
> > >> > lot of #VALUE in cells where I had a formula prodcing perfectly
> > >> acceptable
> > >> > numbers. Then I found that some of the cells where I had blanks were
> > >> > considered by Oo-3.5 to be strings and that is why all these
> formulas
> > are
> > >> > failing.
> > >> >
> > >> > Why is a blank cell considered to have a zero numerical value. Is
> > there a
> > >> > global setting which does this?
> > >> >
> > >> > Thanks for any input.
> > >>
> > >> Check the cell formatting? Perhaps that may be having an impact.
> > >>
> > >
> > > No. I tried that but did not help. I had to go to each of the blank
> cells
> > > referred in the formulas and 'delete contents'. I probably have
> hundreds
> > of
> > > these cells in non-contiguous columns and rows.
> > >
> > > This sheet was perfectly fine in OO2.2 :-(
> > >
> > > BTW I am using Libre Office 3.5 in Ubuntu 12.04 if it makes any
> > difference.
> >
> > If a cell is an empty string, it probably has ['] as its content.
> >
>
> Nope. All the cells where I successfully managed to fix by 'delete
> contents' did not have anything.
>
> >
> > You might be able to do a search-and-replace for empty string and
> > replace it with, well, not sure. Maybe some kind of scripted "for all
> > cells within this range, call "delete contents" if cell is empty"
> >
>
> I have not written any macros but maybe this is an opportunity for me to
> learn :-)
>
> >
> > --
> > :wq
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