Re: [libreoffice-users] LibreOffice Calc - Date - increase number times...

At 17:35 12/12/2019 +1300, David Noname wrote:
> Thank you for your prompt reply, Brian.  It is much appreciated

No probs!

> Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough. In simple terms, I 
> want to know whether there is any way that when I enter a new date 
> in Column D it will automatically increase the current value in Column B by 1.

I guessed that you meant something like this - but no, it wasn't 
clearly stated.

If you could achieve what you ask, the result would be hopelessly 
fragile. We all make mistakes. Suppose that you enter your new date 
incorrectly. The value in column B will be incremented. Then you need 
to enter the correct date, whereupon the value in column B will be 
incremented again. How would you then correct the situation? If you 
tried to correct the value in column B manually, you would overwrite 
whatever formula there was doing the trick for you in the first place 
- and disable it. And what if you entered a correct new date but 
mistakenly for the wrong person?

There is, I think, a solution, and that is to separate data entry 
from the display you actually want to see. Construct a separate area 
- quite possibly on a separate sheet of the spreadsheet - for your 
data entry. This will have a row or column for each of your named 
"reactors", and you will add dates here instead of in the results 
sheet directly. Note that you *add* dates, so that you assemble a 
list of dates, rather than  overwriting a single entry with the most 
recent date. Now all you need to do in column B of your display table 
is to construct a formula which counts the number of dates currently 
listed for that person in the data entry area. And in column D of the 
display table you will similarly construct a formula which picks up 
the most recent date from the data entry area.

With this scheme, any mistaken entries can be corrected with the 
display table always picking up the corrected values.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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