Why, in French, does the combo of functions SI(EXACT(cell1,text);cell2;cell3) returns a boolean instead of cell2 or cell3?

LibreOffice 4.2.8.2
Build ID: 420m0(Build:2)

Example, in D2, E2, F2:

12,8 | DEBIT | VRAI [=SI(EXACT(E2;“DEBIT”);D2;"")]

Interestingly, the result specified in the function wizard is correct…

Cheers,
JPP

Hi

I do not reproduce this malfunction (locale and UI in French). Is it the same in a new spreadsheet?

The cell where the function was probably pre-formatted Boolean value.
Have you tried Right click “Clear Direct Formatting”?

Regards

How on earth do we (pre or post) format a cell to a Boolean value?

Just type TRUE (FALSE) in a cell… or right click Format Cells Numbers tab, Category: Boolean value

“Category: Boolean value” AARGH! Looking & not seeing. Thanks, Pierre.

For me it returns “#NAME?”, since it does not know what the function ‘si()’ is supposed to be. Neither does the Help, nor the function wizard, and neither do I.

Updated later:

GOOD GRIEF!!! There are an entire set of French translations of the command language, so the ‘SI()’ function is the French equivalent of the ‘IF()’ function (thanks Iolax).

Changing F2 to =IF(EXACT(E2,“DEBIT”),D2,"") it gives the result “12.8” (D2 as “12.8” numeric, EN locale) or “12,8” (D2 as ‘12,8’ text’). Note that Calc changed the semi-colons (:wink: to commas (,) twice (once when first pasting the function in, and second after editing each comma back to a semi-colon). I do not know whether the semi-colon change would make any difference to the OP FR result.

I assume that this is a bug in the FR coding. I cannot assist further, as I’m not prepared to change my locale (I would likely need to reinstall with a new locale to experiment further).

If this helps then please tick the answer (:heavy_check_mark:).

Hi Alex, I checked the website Fonctions logiques - LibreOffice Help and found SI function is the IF function in English.

Hi,

thanks for your answers.

@PYS: yesss! Clearing direct formatting does work. Thank you. I thought of a formatting issue, but I had only tried to explicitly format the cell as a Number, which apparently is not enough.

@AlexKemp: I should have mentioned the different set of functions for French, sorry. It actually drives me nuts quite often! Sharing files across different language settings, for instance, may be a pain in the neck (your comment wrt to the semicolon vs. coma issue is typical, since the coma is used as a decimal separator in French…). Thanks for your time anyway.

Cheers,
JPP

Hi,

thanks for your answers.

@PYS: yesss! Clearing direct formatting does work. Thank you. I thought of a formatting issue, but I had only tried to explicitly format the cell as a Number, which apparently is not enough.

@AlexKemp: I should have mentioned the different set of functions for French, sorry. It actually drives me nuts quite often! Sharing files across different language settings, for instance, may be a pain in the neck (your comment wrt to the semicolon vs. coma issue is typical, since the coma is used as a decimal separator in French…). Thanks for your time anyway.

Cheers,
JPP

In French you find “boolean value” as “Valeur logique” in the column “Catégories” of the tab “Nombres”

In French you find “boolean value” as “Valeur logique” in the column “Catégories” of the tab “Nombres”