Curiosity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Josh Sale
  • Start date Start date
J

Josh Sale

Here's a little curiosity I just ran into and I wonder if anybody can shed
some light on it? If you:

enter "+3+2" into a cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3-2" into a cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3*2" into a cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3/2" into a General cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3/2" into a Number cell it is simply evaluated.

Does anybody know why the last case above is treated differently than all of
the other cases mentioned?

I gather that treating a leading "+" as more or less equivalent to an "="
sign goes back to Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility.

TIA,

josh
 
Here's a little curiosity I just ran into and I wonder if anybody can shed
some light on it? If you:

enter "+3+2" into a cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3-2" into a cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3*2" into a cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3/2" into a General cell it becomes a formula;

enter "+3/2" into a Number cell it is simply evaluated.

Does anybody know why the last case above is treated differently than all of
the other cases mentioned?

I gather that treating a leading "+" as more or less equivalent to an "="
sign goes back to Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility.

TIA,

josh
Click to expand...

Hi Josh,

If the formatting is in text then the formula remains as a text.
If the formatting is in number or general the formula gets converted
to its resultant.

Thanks,
Thyag
 
Very odd. I get the saem in XL2007
By guess is becuase / is has two uses (date & division), the programmer did
something different with it conpared to other operators.
best wishes
 
1. Not that it has anything to do with this but you are using Lotus 123's
way
In Excel the default way to enter a formula is to use the equal sign and
given MS history
for support of other programs one day you might get an error using + to
enter a formula

=3+2

not

+3+2


regardless these cells where you get the formula as a result must be
formatted as text
 
Try it Thyag ... I think you'll find that your statement "if the formatting
is in number or general the formula gets converted" is not correct. Better
yet, try all of the cases I describe.
 
It is odd isn't it? I verified the behavior is consistent starting with
XL97 all the way through to XL2007.

Interesting hypothesis regarding the "/" being interpreted as a date.

Thanks.

josh
 
Yeah, I noted that this style of formula entry was implemented in Excel for
Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility in my original posting.
 
You are correct, the interesting thing is that if you check transition
formula entry under tools>options>transition it will work as expected for
number formats.
 
It must be a bug because it works if you check transition formula entry
under tools>options>transition
 
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