GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 472760
Confusing date editing behaviour
Last modified: 2007-09-03 12:38:33 UTC
* Start gnumeric in env LC_ALL=C. * Select column A, format cells as Date, format "d-mmm-yyyy". * In A1, enter "1-3". This is displayed, as expected, as "1-Mar-2007". * Edit A1 using F2. The edit string is, unexpectedly, in US format: "3/1/2007". * Hit enter. The cell value has now been changed into "3-Jan-2007", by an edit that should have been a no-op (F2, enter).
Ouch.
This problem has been fixed in the development version. The fix will be available in the next major software release. Thank you for your bug report.
Confirming that F2, enter is a no-op again through http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/goffice/trunk/goffice/utils/go-format.c?r1=1779&r2=1847 plus http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/gnumeric/trunk/src/wbc-gtk-edit.c?r1=15740&r2=15843 although I'm wondering if it wouldn't be cleaner in this case to have the edit string (after F2) be in the same format as the display format.
There is no guarantee that the formatted value contains enough information to reconstruct the right value. Think of "dd-mmm" or "mmm", for example. Additionally, editing a format like "Monday, September 3, 2007" is not pleasant. Do I have to change to Tuesday if I change 3 to 4?