Re: [libreoffice-users] Strange issue with NOW() that i have not encountered before

At 10:53 01/11/2019 +1300, Steve Edmonds wrote:
> On 01/11/2019 09:21, Tim Deaton wrote:
> > On 10/30/2019 5:11 PM, Brian Barker wrote:
> > > At 20:02 30/10/2019 +0000, Pete Nikolic wrote:
> > > > I am having an issue with NOW() .
> > >
> > > Unfortunately for you, NOW() means "now"; it may be that you need 
> > > a THEN() function!
> > >
> > > > I am using =IF(ISBLANK(A3),"", IF( ISNUMBER(B3), B3, NOW() ) )
> > > > I have copied this by dragging the corner of the cell to 100 
> > > > other cells the problem is when i enter data into a cell in column 3 ...
> > >
> > > Er, column A, perhaps?
> > >
> > > > ... the time changes in every cell in column 3 and it should not.
> > >
> > > You clearly don't want it to, but since NOW() means "now", it 
> > > should. By default, each time you make changes to a spreadsheet, 
> > > formulae are recalculated, and since all your formulae contain a 
> > > reference to NOW(), that will be updated to the current date and 
> > > time, not the one at which previous changes were made.
> > >
> > > [...]
> >
> > This reply confuses me. The OP is using NOW() as the final option 
> > in a nested IF() statement. So, to my understanding, NOW() should 
> > not be executed unless both of the first two options fail. 
> > Otherwise, it appears that the mere presence of the NOW() statement 
> > as one of the options causes the rest of the IF() statement to be 
> > rendered null and void. To me, that behavior makes it a bug.
>
> We have not seen some contents of columns A and B from the new sheet 
> and the old sheet to try to replicate the issue, maybe it is a bug 
> or maybe the formula is doing what it should be.

We haven't - but we don't need to. If any row has the date and time 
in the formulae column, it must be that whatever is in columns A and 
B in that row means that both IF() conditions failed. When the 
questioner makes changes in other rows (the problem situation), there 
is no change to existing rows and both IF() conditions will again 
fail in those rows. So the recalculation will mean that cells in 
relevant rows will execute the NOW() function again and (unhelpfully 
for him) bring the date and time up to date.

Brian Barker  


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