Numbers do not accept negative values after upgrading to Snow Leopard

There is an other area with files dedicated to accounts.

<startupVolume>:Library:Caches:com.apple.ATS:

Mine contains 4 subfolders
502 dedicated to my current account
501 dedicated to the one I use for tests
503 an old one which I will delete soon because it was replaced by the current one
System which is of course dedicated to the system.

I assume that, when we are using an account, we may trash the cache and the db files of a sleeping account forcing the system to rebuild them on next boot.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 8 septembre 2009 20:06:43

May you compare the third party items available in the two machines.

I can't help you to diagnoze which may be the culprit.

My machine using 10.6 is not connected to the net.
It's a pure Apple System, without third party components.
It's used only to tests Apple products.


For the Caches folder, the difference is normal.

I listed the one available on my main machine which run 10.4.11.
On the 10.6 machine we have the same contents (at least as visible items because I didn't tried to show possible hidden ones).

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 8 septembre 2009 21:09:21

What is a Swedish numbers format ?

As far as I know, it's the one used in France:
decimal comma
space char as thousands separator.

This format never fooled my spreadsheet.

No bug in the system
No bug in Numbers

Something corrupted somewhere in your account !

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 9 septembre 2009 20:38:41

I created a new account and set the format to Swedish but couldn't produce the problem. I tried various keyboard layouts and, other than having to figure out where the hyphen was on each layout, I had no problem. Which keyboard layout are you using? I tried a lot of them but maybe I didn't try yours. Are you using the numeric keypad or the hyphen on the keyboard or did you try both? I do not have Snow Leopard, though, so it's likely I won't be able to reproduce this problem if you didn't have it before upgrading.

This did bring one thing to mind that is a similarity but might be unrelated. If I enter +40 into a cell, it is formatted as text and cannot be formatted as a number or used in equations. But =0+40 is formatted as a number. This isn't anything new and is not a problem but it seems awfully similar to what is happening with your minus signs. This came to mind because my hyphen/minus key is the Swedish "+" key; out of habit I kept entering +'s instead of -'s during my testing.

Hello Badunit

In the OP's document, *_the odd cell contains the standard minus character_* !

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 9 septembre 2009 21:41:37

I must apologize.

It's odd but it's problem between Numbers and Snow Leopard.

I was reluctant to change my settings to retrieve a format matching the French one but I did it.

I entered the International prefpane and set Region to Suédois > Suédois

Patatras, entering a negative number put it on the left of the cell.

The character is a true minus one.

I will file a bug report tomorrow.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 9 septembre 2009 22:26:46

I don't think it is. I think there is a bug and you have narrowed it down to language-related.

I didn't waited and already filed this report:

Your tracking number for this issue is Bug ID# 7209716. You may check status on this report via the 'My Originated Problems' tab.


Hello

+May you check this behavior?+

+From the International prefpane,+
+set the main language of the operating system to English or French (I tested these two)+
+set Region to Swedish > Swedish+

+Open Numbers+
+in B2, enter 123+
+in B3, enter -23+

+The negative number will be pushed on the left like a string.+

+If you enter the formula +
=B2+B3
+you will get 123 when everybody would assume 100.+

+It's a behavior introduced by MacOS 10.6+

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mercredi 9 septembre 2009 22:48:31

Got a really quick feedback:

+Hello Yvan,+

+This is a follow up to Bug ID# 7209716. After further investigation it has been determined that _this is a known issue,_ which is currently being investigated by engineering.+

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 11 septembre 2009 10:26:30

Thanks for the feedback.

It's the first time that I receive so quickly a response from bugs hunters 😉

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 11 septembre 2009 17:50:15