comma separated value with the field in the .csv file which looks like this between the two commas
,“=”“-489 days”“”,
excel displays -489 days ( although the actual value in the cell is =“-489 days” )
numbers displays -489 days ( although the actual value in the cell is “-489 days” )
Panorama X 10.2.0.b39 displays =“-489 days”
I am not sure what the ‘correct’ result should be.
Should I try to go back to the data source and say that it is in error, and should actually be -489 days instead of “=”“-489 days”“”
Panorama is faithfully reproducing the value in the cell. It would appear that Excel and Numbers are both making it impossible for the result to be =“-489 days”. Those are the rules for quoting quote marks. Two quotes in succession stand for one quote, within the quoted text.
I wonder if Excel and Numbers are treating this as an expression. I’m not a spreadsheet expert, but I think you would use a leading = to designate that a cell contains a formula, for example
=A1+B2
So maybe these spreadsheets are interpreting
="-489 days"
as an expression, thus producing a value of
-489 days
However, I don’t know of anything in the CSV specification that would allow evaluation of expressions contained in the CSV data!!
What is the source of this data? I think that this is an error as far as the CSV specification goes, but one that happened to work in Excel and Numbers. The wrinkle is that there really is no such thing as a “CSV Specification”, so someone might well say “whatever Excel does, that’s the specification”
