On 8/28/2007 3:16 AM, J Dougherty wrote: > On Monday 27 August 2007 22:21, David Scott wrote: >> On Tue, 28 Aug 2007, Robert A LaBudde wrote: >> > If you format the column as "Text", you won't have this problem. By >> > leaving the cells as "General", you leave it up to Excel to guess at >> > the correct interpretation. >> >> Not true actually. I had converted the column to Text because I saw the >> interpretation as a date in the .xls file. I saved the .csv file *after* >> the column had been converted to Text. Looking at the .csv file in a text >> editor, the entry is correct. >> >> I have just rechecked this. >> >> On reopening the .csv using Excel, the entry AUG2699 had been interpreted >> as a date, and was showing as Aug-99. Most bizarre is that the NHI value >> of AUG1838 has *not* been interpreted as a date. >> > Actually, in Excel 2000, he's right. What you have to is be sure of is that > the "'" that denotes a text entry precedes EVERY entry that can be confused > with a date. Selecting the entire column and setting the format to "text" > *before* data is entered does this. It will also create an appropriate *.csv > file. Excel is notable too because it will automatically convert "date-like" > entries as you type. In a column of IDs or similar critical data, that > behaviour is really bad. I have never tried the MS site, but I haven't been > able to find any entry about how to turn that particular automatic behaviour > off. > > However, while I have not experimented extensively, as far as I have > experimented, OpenOffice spreadsheet does not behave this way.
I don't use Excel, but in OpenOffice 2.2.1 the ' is lost when a file is saved as .csv and reloaded. So if I take care and enter 'November 15 in a cell, then save it, OO will change it to 11/15/2007 when I reload. I can override this change by manually changing "Standard" format to "Text" *every time* I load the file. There's a help index entry "date formats;avoiding conversion to", but it offers no more help than "add an apostrophe at the beginning of the entry". This is brain-dead behaviour. Duncan Murdoch > > JWDougherty > > PS, I quit using Excel for most important work after it returned a negative > variance on some data I was collecting descriptive statistics on. > > JWD > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.