[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 73242] FORMATTING: Enhancement: Expand usage of local settings (regional settings) in Options/Languages

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73242

--- Comment #8 from jsd.libreoffice at bvac.co.za ---
(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #7)
> *** Bug 123878 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

I'd like to point out, since it isn't mentioned so far in this thread, that my
reason for logging bug 123878 originally was because of how LO is parsing
numeric literals.

Brace yourself, this gets confusing...

My complaint is that for me, numbers with decimal places, LO does not interpret
a period as the decimal point; it expects a comma instead.

So for example, the string "123.4" (with a period) gets treated as zero when
used in a formula.  However, the string "123,4" gets treated correctly (i.e. as
a tenth of 1234)

Now on the one hand, this is arguably correct, given that my OS locale is South
Africa, where the _standard_ decimal separator is indeed a comma.

However in the OS settings I have _changed_ the decimal separator to a period,
and LO isn't picking that up.

Yet in the LO preferences, the locale _there_ is English (UK), where I'm pretty
sure the decimal separator is a period.

So it's not clear to me where LO's idea of the comma as decimal separator is
coming from.

But regardless of that, IMHO LO should actually *ignore* the regional settings
when parsing numeric literals.  My reasoning is:
  (1) it makes numeric literals in macros and formulae locale-independent
  (2) it's consistent with OpenOffice and MS Office behaviour
  (3) it plays nice with Calc, because cell values are extracted with decimal
_periods_ even with my locale settings.

FWIW, I logged that bug after migrating from OO to LO.
I have a Writer template with calculations that failed in LO because it
contained numbers with decimal periods (not commas).  Changing the periods to
commas fixed the calculations.  

That template also has a macro that extracts a cell value from a spreadsheet
and uses it in a formula.  The formula failed for the same reason: the
extracted value (which was truly a number, not s string) is converted
implicitly by LO to a string, with a decimal _period_.  Calculations with that
value fail unless the period is replaced with a comma.

OK finally, FYI: there's an attachment to bug 123878 with a minimal demo of the
calculation problem in a Writer template.

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