helpcontent2/source/text/scalc/05/empty_cells.xhp

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  38                 <helpdocument version="1.0">
  39 <meta>
  40 <topic id="textscalc05empty_cellsxml" indexer="include" status="PUBLISH">
  41 <title id="tit" xml-lang="en-US">Handling of Empty Cells</title>
  42 <filename>/text/scalc/05/empty_cells.xhp</filename>
  43 </topic>
  44 </meta>
  45 <body>
  46 <bookmark xml-lang="en-US" branch="index" id="bm_id3146799"><bookmark_value>empty cells;handling of</bookmark_value>
  47 </bookmark><comment>i86303</comment><paragraph role="heading" id="hd_id1502121" xml-lang="en-US" level="1" l10n="NEW"><variable id="empty_cells"><link href="text/scalc/05/empty_cells.xhp">Handling of Empty Cells</link>
  48 </variable></paragraph>
  49 <paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id2871181" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">Starting with OpenOffice.org 3.0 and StarOffice 9, the handling of empty cells got changed.</paragraph>
  50 <paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id8266853" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">Previously, empty cells were forced to numeric 0 in some contexts and to empty string in others, except in direct comparison where =A1=0 and =A1="" both resulted in TRUE if A1 was empty. Emptiness now is inherited until used, so both =VLOOKUP(...)=0 and =VLOOKUP(...)="" give TRUE if the lookup resulted in an empty cell being returned. </paragraph>
  51 <paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id2733542" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">A simple reference to an empty cell is still displayed as numeric 0 but is not necessarily of type numeric anymore, so also comparisons with the referencing cell work as expected. </paragraph>
  52 <paragraph role="paragraph" id="par_id4238715" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">For the following examples, A1 contains a number, B1 is empty, C1 contains the reference to B1:</paragraph>
  53 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id8277230" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">A1: 1 B1: &lt;empty&gt; C1: =B1 (displays 0)</paragraph>
  54 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4086428" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=B1=0 =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  55 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id9024628" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=B1="" =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  56 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id3067110" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=C1=0 =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  57 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id8841822" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=C1="" =&gt; TRUE (previously was FALSE)</paragraph>
  58 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4077578" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(B1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  59 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id9094515" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(C1) =&gt; FALSE (previously was TRUE)</paragraph>
  60 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id396740" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) =&gt; FALSE (B1)</paragraph>
  61 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id3859675" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) =&gt; FALSE (C1, previously was TRUE)</paragraph>
  62 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id402233" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(B1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  63 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id1623889" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(C1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  64 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id7781914" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) =&gt; FALSE (B1, previously was TRUE)</paragraph>
  65 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id300912" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) =&gt; FALSE (C1)</paragraph>
  66 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id9534592" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISBLANK(B1) =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  67 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4969328" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISBLANK(C1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  68 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id9635914" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISBLANK(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;2)) =&gt; TRUE (B1, previously was FALSE)</paragraph>
  69 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id2476577" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISBLANK(VLOOKUP(1;A1:C1;3)) =&gt; FALSE (C1)</paragraph>
  70 <paragraph role="note" id="par_id4217047" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">Note that Microsoft Excel behaves different and always returns a number as the result of a reference to an empty cell or a formula cell with the result of an empty cell. For example:</paragraph>
  71 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id2629474" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">A1: &lt;empty&gt;</paragraph>
  72 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id8069704" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">B1: =A1 =&gt; displays 0, but is just a reference to an empty cell</paragraph>
  73 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4524674" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(A1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  74 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4396801" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(A1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  75 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id5293740" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=A1=0 =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  76 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id7623828" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=A1="" =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  77 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id2861720" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(B1) =&gt; FALSE (MS-Excel: TRUE)</paragraph>
  78 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id9604480" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(B1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  79 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id2298959" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=B1=0 =&gt; TRUE</paragraph>
  80 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4653767" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=B1="" =&gt; TRUE (MS-Excel: FALSE)</paragraph>
  81 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id8801538" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">C1: =VLOOKUP(...) with empty cell result =&gt; displays empty (MS-Excel: displays 0)</paragraph>
  82 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id6746421" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(VLOOKUP(...)) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  83 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id4876247" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(VLOOKUP(...)) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  84 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id7458723" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISNUMBER(C1) =&gt; FALSE (MS-Excel: TRUE)</paragraph>
  85 <paragraph role="code" id="par_id2753379" xml-lang="en-US" l10n="NEW">=ISTEXT(C1) =&gt; FALSE</paragraph>
  86 </body>
  87 </helpdocument>