[users] Date changes

[H.S.Rai]

On 5/25/09, Brian Barker <b.m.barker at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> At 22:43 24/05/2009 +0530, H.S. Rai wrote:
>
>> http://www.goldentemplephotos.com/datesheet_new.xls has row no 362, 363
>> when opened using OpenOffice 3.0.1 (on Ubuntu 9.04) build 9379 shown as:
>>
>>    29/5/2009 EVENING 6TH CE-304 Geotechnical Engg. CIVL A0619
>>    06/01/2009 EVENING 6TH CE-306 Irrigation Engineering-I CIVL A0620
>
>

Those who are not on OO and Ubuntu mailing list and interested in this
thread, should see mail on other list also:

OpenOffice mailing list
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=users&by=thread&from=2234266
Ubuntu mailing list
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2009-May/thread.html#185836


While Google Doc as well MSExcell shows 01/06/2009 for row no. 363 (which is
>> correct), that mean 1st of June is shown as 6th of Jan. Such error is there
>> for many rows in same spreadsheet.
>>
>> Where is problem? With excel spreadsheet or with OpenOffice?
>>
>
> Probably neither!
>
> Whoever created this spreadsheet or entered the data has done so
> inconsistently.  Most of the data in column A, though it looks like dates,
> is actually text strings.  Select A362, for example, and look in the Input
> Line: you will see the tell-tale leading apostrophe, indicating that what is
> there is the text string "29/5/2009" and not a date (which could display the
> same way).  But some values, including your example of A363, have been
> entered as dates.  A363 actually contains the sixth of January, not the
> first of June.
>
> How has this happened?  The display of dates in spreadsheets follows the
> locale setting.



That's what I suspected.


 For a US locale, for example, dates will be interpreted as meaning
> month/day/year, but for many other locales (are you in India?), the more
> logical day/month/year is used.  Very probably, someone had the locale set
> to US and managed to enter the wrong dates so that they displayed as they
> expected with the wrong locale setting!  This shows up only when you use the
> spreadsheet with a different locale: the genuine dates change their display
> but the text strings do not.  (Are your Google and Excel using a US style?)



I don't have Excel on my Laptop, I requested somebody on different PC to
check it. He might have USA locale and reported correct date.

Google might be using locale from its server, not from local PC as it is web
browser (not sure, but on my same laptop I could see so called correct
display with Google Doc)

This file is date sheet for Punjab Technical University (
http://ptu.ac.in/). I believe, clerk entered all date in format
dd/mm/yyyy for a machine
having locale mm/dd/yyyy. So valid dates for PC(dd (as assumed by clerk, and
mm taken by computer) < 13) taken as date and others are as text.

This has highlighted problems of using default setting without applying
mind. People don't mind having "color" (corrected by default setting) and
writing "colour" by hand as taught in their school. However, using default
locale as above and not using software in proper manner can create havoc.

-- 
H.S.Rai
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20090525/bee3d030/attachment.html>