So i have some rdfs that download from the server through rwservlet as excels (xls). My question is: can i use excel formulas like sum on the report returned data?
I tried formatting the data (i think here relies the problem as it seem it doesn't affect the data that's already there) and modifying the decimal separator to "." from the rdf. Neither work, not separate or together; the sum formula returns 0. However if i overwrite new data over report data in a field, sum works.
It seems to me it sees all the data returned from the report like text and the formatting doesn't affect the already there data.
Thank you
I go to the root of the problem: the format mask in the rdf was adding a space for sign for the positive numbers. Hence excel was not recognizing it as a number. Problem is after i put a "-" in the format mask to get rid of the space excel re-formats the number automatically from 1.00 to 1 for example. So basically the format mask in the rdf is overwritten, i could not use it at all and i'd get the same result.
Related
Situation:
I am pulling information from a database and exporting it into an Excel 2010 template. The data consists of unique IDs (numeric), dates, and text in their respective columns. When going to sort, Excel usually recognizes the unique IDs as text and gives me the option of 'A-Z' which yields the correct result.
Problem:
Occasionally when sorting the unique IDs, Excel will give me the option to sort from 'Smallest to Largest' and when this happens the report yields a wildly incorrect result.
Pattern:
The sorting criteria is the only common denominator when a report fails, which makes little sense as they are both ascending orders. This issue only occurs ~20% of the time. The other times it sorts correctly from 'A-Z' as it does in the other worksheets within the same template.
-I've tried changing Number Format within the drop down to 'Text' 'General' and 'Numbers'
-I've tried manually sorting the data through filters as opposed to sort hierarchies
-I've tried clearing the table, and re-copying/pasting the data into the template's worksheet. This seems to work, but as the end goal is automation, I'd like to find out what the root cause is.
Expected result: Numeric data copied and pasted into the field to be sorted from 'A-Z', resulting in a successful report.
Actual result: Numeric data copied and pasted into the field typically results in the sort option of "A-Z', but occasionally sorts from 'Smallest to Largest' resulting in a failed report.
Excel is designed for numbers - and is generally very helpful in coercing text to numbers where appropriate. However, once in Number format the reverse is not easy. As you have discovered, merely choosing Text as format is not enough.
A clue is whether or not (assuming activated) the cells show green triangles.
Other than starting afresh with data entry into a cell already formatted as Text, the conventional solution for conversion with code is to prepend a quote, though appending a space would also serve.
Other than that, the easiest mass conversion approach may be to copy into Word (Keep text only) and copy back to Excel with pasting as Text.
The better solution may be to store IDs as text and prepend 0s to a standard length.
A colleague and I encountered a behavior in Excel which isn't clear to us.
Background:
We have a tool which converts an Excel sheet into a table format. The tool calculates the formulas which are in excel and replaces variables inside it with specific values.
The excel tool is used by one of our customers who use values like (8) or (247).
These Value are automatically translated by excel to -8 or -247.
Question:
I saw that many people want to display negative numbers in parentheses. But why would Excel change values in parentheses to a negative number?
I know that I could simply change the cell config to text and this would solve the problem but I wonder if there is a reason for the behavior, since there seems to be no mathematical reason for this.
Its simply the different format of cells you are bringing the "values from" and "pasting to". ..... numbers with parentheses are in cells with "accounting" format and negatives are stored in general or standard number formated cells. To resolve you can change the format of destination cells to accounting using cell formatting as number>accounting.
To answer the why, it's because accountants put negative numbers in brackets for readability
Unfortunately, this is one of the excel feature/bugs that helps some folks and frustrates others. When opening a file or pasting content, excel will immediately and always try to parse any values into formats it deems appropriate, which can mess up data like:
Zip Codes / Tel. # → Numeric: 05401 → 5401
Fractions → Dates: 11/20 → Nov, 20th YYYY
Std. Errors → Negative Numbers: (0.1) → -0.1
For some workarounds , see Stop Excel from automatically converting certain text values to dates
Once the file is open/pasted, the damage is already done. At that point, your best bet is:
Updating the field and displaying as text (appending with ') to prevent re-casting
Formatting the field if the operation wasn't lossy and is just presenting the info differently
Running a clean if/else to pad or other convert your data based on the identified errors
Specific to displaying values back in parens, if excel is converting them and treating them like negative numbers (which may or may not be the appropriate way to actually store the data), you can apply a different format to positive and negative numbers to wrap back in parens.
It is standard practice to write negative values as numbers in parentheses, especially in accounting. This makes negative values stand out much more than a simple negative hyphen; compare -1 and (1).
Excel is a tool very commonly used by accountants and supports accountant-style spreadsheets. Therefore, entering (100) means having a value of -100, even if there is no minus hyphen!
Here is a fun fact, if you enter (-10), Excel will treat it as normal text.
I am trying to convert exponential form to a number but I can't figure out how it has to be done.
I have a number 1820674000000385406.
I am pasting this number excel after saving this I am following these steps
Format cells->Number and selecting the type.
but after doing this I am not getting my original number I am getting the number as 1820674000000380000
but I want my original number back. Please help me with this.
Excel has a limited resolution of 15 digits for the this type as you can see here:
Excel specifications and limits
Thus Excel saves 182067400000038E+04, which are the 15 first digits of your number and the corresponding exponential.
If you want to keep your number as it is, I recommend you to use a database instead. Excel is not made for these kind of huge numbers.
Best
While storing you can app ' before the number. This would stop excel from converting the number.
Example - 1820674000000385406 would be stored as '1820674000000385406
Another work around is to store number as text. By formatting the cells as to type text.
More details you can find here
I have a matrix where the first column contains dates and the first row contains maturities which are alpha/numeric (e.g. 16year).
The rest of the cells contain the rates for each day, which are double precision numbers.
Now I believe xlsread() can only handle numeric data so I think I will need something else or a combination of functions?
I would like to be able to read the table from excel into MATLAB as one array or perhaps a struct() so that I can keep all the data together.
The other problem is that some of the rates are given as '#N/A'. I want the cells where these values are stored to be kept but would like to change the value to blank=" ".
What is the best way to do this? Can it be done as part of the input process?
Well, from looking at matlab reference for xlsread you can use the format
[num,txt,raw] = xlsread(FILENAME)
and then you will have in num a matrix of your data, in txt the unreadable data, i.e. your text headers, and in raw you will have all of your data unprocessed. (including the text headers).
So I guess you could use the raw array, or a combination of the num and txt.
For your other problem, if your rates are 'pulled' from some other source, you can use
=IFERROR(RATE DATA,"")
and then there will be a blank instead of the error code #N\A.
Another solution (only for Windows) would be to use xlsread() format which allows running a function on your imported data,
[num,txt,raw,custom] = xlsread(filename,sheet,xlRange,'',functionHandler)
and let the function replace the NaN values with blank spots. (and you will have your output in the custom array)
33266500,332665100,332665200,332665300 was the original value, cell should look like this: 33266500,332665100,332665200,332665300 but what I see as the cell value in excel is 3.32665E+34
So the question is I want to convert it into the original string. I have found format function on google and I used it like these
format(3.32665E+34,"standard")
giving it as 332,6650,033,266,510,000,000,000
How to parse it or get back the orginal string? I belive format is the function in vba.
Excel has a 15 digit precision limit. If the numbers are already shown like this when you access the file, there is no way to get the number back - you have already lost some digits. VBA code and formulas will not help you.
If this is not the case, you can add a single quote ' mark before the number to store it as text. This will ensure Excel does not try to treat it as a number and thus lose precision.
If you want the value kept exactly, store the data as a string, not as a number. The data type you are using simply doesn't have the ability to do what you are asking it to do.
If you're starting with an Excel file that has already been created then you've already lost the information: Excel has tried to understand what it was given and its best guess has turned out to be wrong. All you can do (if you can't get the source data) is go back to the creator of the Excel file and tell them what's wrong.
If you're starting with, say, a text file that you're importing, then the news is much better:
If you're importing manually using the Text Import Wizard, then at "Step 3 of 3" you need to set "Column Data Format" for the problem field to "Text".
If you're using a macro, you'll need to specify a value for the TextFileColumnDataTypes property that does the same thing. The easiest way to get it right is to use the Macro Recorder.
If you want the four values in the string to be separate cells, then again, look at the Text Import Wizard settings: in Step 1 of 3 you need to set "Delimited" data type (usually the default) and in Step 2 make sure that "Comma" is checked.
The value needs to be entered into the cell as a string. You need to make whatever it is that inserts the value preceed the value with a '.