[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 49135] For empty cells MONTH() function returns '12' instead of error message.

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49135

--- Comment #9 from Sascha Nemecek <nemecek at wienfluss.net> 2012-04-28 14:30:45 PDT ---
Thank you for your replies and let me tell you that I understand your
argumentation about the calculation being correct. Anyhow I think - in
accordance to Michael Meeks' proposal - that MONTH("") or reference to an empty
STRING- or empty DATE-cell should return #VALUE!


Let me explain my whole use case for an example (maybe that helps for a better
understanding): 

I use calc for accounting and I created a statistic for calculating the
expected monthly tax rate by fetching the valuta data from a billing table. 

When I looked at the statistical numbers, I realized that there where already
some numbers for December 2012. Digging into it I realized that bills which
have not been paid contained no date in the valuta row and where somehow
attributed to December. Luckily that did not cause any harm. 

In case of a serious calculations such an error might cost someone a lot of
money. 


My point now is, that you cannot tell how users will use the functions provided
by calc. Hence, better show an error if data is invalid or incomplete than
assume a value that might lead to unexpected results. Therefore I think an
error code would be the correct behaviour for empty cells. 

Just my 2 cents, 
Sascha

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