4 ms·

PSA: if you use Excel as intended, you would just go File/New/Blank Worksheet, switch to the Data tab, then use the 'From Text/CSV' wizard to specify the data t

by mdb31 4y ago

PSA: if you use Excel as intended, you would just go File/New/Blank Worksheet, switch to the Data tab, then use the 'From Text/CSV' wizard to specify the data types for each column in your data source, neatly bypassing this entire issue. But yes, just double-clicking the CSV from Explorer, using the legacy 'open this as a sheet' functionality, experiencing data loss and then complaining about it (and the state of Excel, MSFT and The World in general) on social media is much, much more fun...

hoseja 4y ago
The easy action should be safe by default.
- mdb31 4y ago
  Yes, but without inventing a time machine to go back to 1985 or so (at which time the safe option did not exist, so better invent temporal code backporting as well), that's not a viable option. Any change to Excel's 'open a worksheet' logic would break so many workflows it's just not funny anymore. I'm not kidding if I say I suspect it would significantly impact several countries' GDP for a while. Even the (sometimes comically inadequate) heuristics that Excel uses to auto-determine field types can't be updated, for very similar reasons. Backwards-compatibility is... interesting...
  - Linosaurus 4y ago
    > Any change to Excel's 'open a worksheet' logic would break so many workflows it's just not funny anymore. My preferred work flow would be to open the csv, change some formatting, then reinterpret the original data. It would require keeping two sets of data for each cell, but that seems to already be the case since F2-enter on each cell would accomplish exactly that. Last I tried.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Easy action should be what majority expects. I wonder what is the ratio of people dealing with dates versus genes is... Probably very substantial on favour to those who deal with dates. So things just to work for them is likely better option.
tidenly 4y ago
In Japan everyone passes around CSVs in shift-jis still for exactly this reason - the default opening action of Excel with CSVs. Its easy to say its people being dumb, but at this point I really wish excel just wasn't so confident in itself and actually asked you during the default open operation what you want to do.
- netsharc 4y ago
  It uses Windows-1252 in Europe...
- fomine3 4y ago
  Actually UTF-8 WITH BOM csv file also can be read/written like that since Excel 2016, but of course average users aren't knowledgeable as like programmers.
imtringued 4y ago
>then use the 'From Text/CSV' wizard to specify the data types for each column in your data source, neatly bypassing this entire issue. Something people do not understand is that type information in CSV files is conveyed out of band. The application that is reading the CSV file must know the datatype which effectively turns each CSV file into an application specific format.
- hobofan 4y ago
  > which effectively turns each CSV file into an application specific format Thanks for writing that! I don't think I've seen the reason for my (partial) dislike of CSV put into words that clearly before.

by mdb31 4y ago

hoseja 4y ago

The easy action should be safe by default.

mdb31 4y ago
Yes, but without inventing a time machine to go back to 1985 or so (at which time the safe option did not exist, so better invent temporal code backporting as well), that's not a viable option. Any change to Excel's 'open a worksheet' logic would break so many workflows it's just not funny anymore. I'm not kidding if I say I suspect it would significantly impact several countries' GDP for a while. Even the (sometimes comically inadequate) heuristics that Excel uses to auto-determine field types can't be updated, for very similar reasons. Backwards-compatibility is... interesting...
- Linosaurus 4y ago
  > Any change to Excel's 'open a worksheet' logic would break so many workflows it's just not funny anymore. My preferred work flow would be to open the csv, change some formatting, then reinterpret the original data. It would require keeping two sets of data for each cell, but that seems to already be the case since F2-enter on each cell would accomplish exactly that. Last I tried.
Ekaros 4y ago
Easy action should be what majority expects. I wonder what is the ratio of people dealing with dates versus genes is... Probably very substantial on favour to those who deal with dates. So things just to work for them is likely better option.

tidenly 4y ago

In Japan everyone passes around CSVs in shift-jis still for exactly this reason - the default opening action of Excel with CSVs. Its easy to say its people being dumb, but at this point I really wish excel just wasn't so confident in itself and actually asked you during the default open operation what you want to do.

netsharc 4y ago
It uses Windows-1252 in Europe...
fomine3 4y ago
Actually UTF-8 WITH BOM csv file also can be read/written like that since Excel 2016, but of course average users aren't knowledgeable as like programmers.

imtringued 4y ago

>then use the 'From Text/CSV' wizard to specify the data types for each column in your data source, neatly bypassing this entire issue. Something people do not understand is that type information in CSV files is conveyed out of band. The application that is reading the CSV file must know the datatype which effectively turns each CSV file into an application specific format.

hobofan 4y ago
> which effectively turns each CSV file into an application specific format Thanks for writing that! I don't think I've seen the reason for my (partial) dislike of CSV put into words that clearly before.