Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 34559
Language setting affects decimal point character
Last modified: 2010-11-11 03:30:11 UTC
The problem is that using OOo 1.1.2 with a South African English setting the decimal point as a "." is no longer recognised; instead a comma "," has to be used. The work-around is to set the language to USA English, however this means that the currency also has to be changed. The convention, irrespective of whether it is correct or not, has always been to use a decimal point i.e. "." , a fullstop and to be able to use the "." on the numeric keypad as a decimal delimiter. This seems to have changed at 1.1.2 as it has worked as expected up until OOo1.1.1 If the language setting is not changed the "." is interpreted as a date delimiter and values entered appear to be shown as dates eg, if 1.1 is entered a value of 04/01/01 is displayed; if entered in a formula eg =sum (12345.35+12.45), #NAME? is displayed.
Chris Tanner, 9/23/04 I was able to replicate your test cases with identical results. This illustrated a difference in South African English standards between OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 and older versions: In OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 and OpenOffice.org 1.1.0, I did the following: 1) Open a new Spreadsheet 2) Changed language setting to English (South African) via Tools->Options->Languages 3) Typed various decimal numbers such as “1.1” and “1.1111” 4) Tested basic functions such as “=SUM(12345.35+12.45)” My results for OpenOffice 1.1.2 were identical to yours: simple decimal numbers like “1.1” are converted to dates, just as if “1/1” were entered in the English (USA) language. Numbers with more than 3 digits after the decimal (i.e. “1.1111”) remove the period and convert the number to an integer. Also, the summation function gives the same “#NAME?” result for values that are normally accepted for the English (USA) language, such as: “=SUM(35.29; 259.2)” My testing also supported your results that suggested a difference between using English (South African) in OpenOffice.org 1.1.2 and 1.1.0. South African English with version 1.1.0 yielded results identical to the English (USA) language, agreeing with the “traditional” definition of “.” and ‘,” Consequently, I researched the South African English language, and it surprisingly appears that OpenOffice 1.1.2 correctly treats decimals and commas: “Commas are never used this way in English, except in South Africa” (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Comma_(punctuation) 2004). Even though my results fully agreed with yours, I’m eager to believe that this change between versions is an enhancement instead of a defect. Following are the specifications of the system on which I tested: Two Operating Systems I tested on: a) Microsoft Windows 2000 Build 5.00.2195, Service Pack 4 b) Fedora Core Linux (kernel 2.6.7) Intel Pentium 4 at 2.80 GHz 1 Gigabyte DDR RAM Two OpenOffice.org versions: 1.1.0; 1.1.2
Hi, this is a double to Issue 30568. Frank *** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 30568 ***
closed double
Created attachment 74137