[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 116579] Date format setting not recognised

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=116579

--- Comment #12 from Elmar <roberg at iafrica.com> ---
OK. Let us step back.
There are three issues that should not be confused:
1. how data that is stored.
2. how the date is presented (displayed).
3. how the date can be input


1. this is a matter that (should be) transparent to users, and they should not
have to care about that. (And of course we wish MS/IBM hadn't created the 1904
issue.)

2. how it is displayed depends on who the audience is.

3. this is what my issue is about. 

We type dates often (having to type 2018-12-04 is a lot more keystrokes than
4/12. Especially when one uses two fingers to type.

Of course 4/12 looks like arithmetic, and so does 4-12, but I do not start the
input with = or - or + so that is OK. Calc does not interpret my input to be a
formula.

(I have just discovered that if I type /412/ or /4/12 Calc displays the digits
between the // as italic, but the number 412 is a normal integer.)

For anyone who has to use Excel a lot, it is a pity that Calc does not
automatically interpret "4dec" intuitively to mean "fourth of December 2018",
but I can live with that. I like that feature in Excel because it is more
likely to be correctly interpreted. I do appreciate that in German this would
have to be 4dez, Spanish 4dic, and that would probably add a whole lot of code
turning Calc into bloatware, that would not be good.

As to the standards and multiple regional formats. I have never understood the
US method 0f m/d/y. 

(Some?) European format 4.12.18 looks like the Dewey system and thus could be
confusing. And of course if I input 4.12 then Calc can rightly not know if this
is a date or a rational number I am inputting.

ISO says yyyy-mm-dd and that makes the most sense when sorting an alphanumeric
field. But I don't believe there is any human who says today is "two thousand
and eighteen the twelfth month the fourth day", unless maybe they are autistic.
So you say it differently from the way you write it which requires more mental
effort.

Any country is filled with people who come from all over. Attempting to get
them to follow standards is like herding cats, or pushing a long piece of rope;
i.e. impossible.

Some are comfortable with UK formats, some with US, some with EU, etc...

I am living in SA (South Africa). Currencies thus needs to show Rand (ZAR or
R). Thus my region is set that way. The SA standard is comma in place of
decimal point, but no one (except the proverbial autistic) does that. We almost
all write R1,000,000.00; NOT R 1 000 000,00. (In any event these are display
formats - I would have input this number 1000000, or 1,000,000 and Calc
correctly removes the commas when storing the input.

My fingers just seem to find the number and slash keys more easily. Not sure
why.

However, here is the real issue:

If you, as the honourable and generous developers, give me a setting that
allows me to use any one of the formats that I have identified in 
<Tools/Options/Language Settings/Date acceptance patterns> 
then I expect Calc to interpret this as a date and store it correctly.

So, if the options say "Y-M-D;D/M;D/M/Y" then in means that if I type 18-12-4
or 4/12 or 4/12/18 they should all be interpreted as 4 December 2018.

Note that I have carefully not allowed for D.M or D.M.Y; because 4.12 could be
interpreted as the rational number and 4.12.18 as text. 

BUT, if 
<Tools/Options/Language Settings/Date acceptance patterns> 
said "Y-M-D;D/M;D/M/Y;D.M;D.M.Y"
and if I had formatted the cell as a date, then 4.12 or 4.12.18 should also be
interpreted as 4 December 2018. 

i.e. the current year and century is always assumed unless I specify it
differently, so when I input 4.12.17 or 4/12/17 or 17-12-4 are interpreted as
2017.

I may be setting up my display options wrong, but that should have no effect on
Calc if I have used the
<Tools/Options/Language Settings/Date acceptance patterns> 
feature when I input data.

As a list note, the reason why I have set the display options that way is
because that seems to give me the best results a number of years ago.

Does this make more sense?

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