[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 138872] New: FORMATTING: Currency format should display $0.00 instead of -$0.00 or $(0.00)

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138872

            Bug ID: 138872
           Summary: FORMATTING: Currency format should display $0.00
                    instead of -$0.00 or $(0.00)
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: 6.1.5.2 release
          Hardware: All
                OS: Linux (All)
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: Calc
          Assignee: libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: ralacroix at hydro.mb.ca

Description:
The summary says it all.

Argument 1: If a number is close enough to zero, to call it zero for currency
purposes, the sign of the insignificant digits shouldn't matter. It's not like
we already know where a minus sign arises in a series of calculations. For
example enter this formula: =23281.51-119.78-23161.73 in one cell and in
another cell enter these same values in a different order with this formula:
=23281.51-23161.73-119.78  You would expect the signs to be the same when you
apply currency formatting to these numbers, no?

Argument 2: Let's show some consistency between the "Format as Currency" tool
and the "Format as Number" tool. For a number like -.0001 displayed with 2
decimal places, the currency format shows a minus sign while the number format
does not. Only when the user adds enough decimal places does the number format
change the displayed sign from positive to negative.

Argument 3: Let's promote sanity where we can sanely control it. This is just a
display formatting choice, folks. If I really care about having zero in that
cell because another calculation depends on it, then I will use the ROUND()
function. I shouldn't have to obsessively use the ROUND() function to change
the display formatting. 

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Enter -.0001 into a cell.

2. Select the cell containing the number.

3. Click on the "Format as Currency" tool (or Ctrl+Shift+4). Observe the value
is displayed as  -$0.00

3. Click on the "Format as Number" tool (or Ctrl+Shift+1). Observe the value is
displayed as  0.0  without a sign. The minus sign appears when you add enough
decimal places.

Actual Results:
First I asked myself why I still prefer to use LO Calc over Excel.

Then tried this same experiment in MS 365 Excel and it's exactly the same
result. Even those sums.

Then I remembered that we can have the power to make LO Calc better than Excel.

Expected Results:
I expected LO Calc to be better than Excel. And the currency formatting to work
like number formatting regarding sign and precision. Unless there's
international standard that says otherwise.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: No



Additional Info:
Version: 6.1.5.2
Build ID: 1:6.1.5-3+deb10u6
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 4.19; UI render: default; VCL: x11; 
Locale: en-CA (en_CA.utf8); Calc: group threaded

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