I have been waiting on a data file for days now and when I finally got my hands on it I discover that excel converted the IDs into scientific notation when they exported it.

Thank you, Microsoft, for yet another delay in my work.

How difficult is it to convert back?

If you highlight the column and right-click > Format Cells > Custom > 0, it will change the formatting back to a lengthy integer.

I think they recently added a setting to disable precisely that behavior :)

Or maybe someone should learn how excel works first

@IdontHaveAName @ChinUndercover Not possible because the text of the cell is the scientific notation, not just excel formatting the cells like it always unhelpfully does even though no one asks it to.

@ostream blaming the SW is the Hallmark of a lazy user.

@ostream you can't blame the SW when it's his default behavior for 30+ years

@ostream 👍

choose one of the following:

1) your fault for using excel, and you should feel bad.

2) your fault for not shouting at the top of your lungs at $personWhoUsedExcel that they're at fault for using excel, and they should feel bad.

@tosensei I use notepad++ to view my spreadsheets whenever possible. If that doesn't work, I use libreoffice because it seems less militant about transforming data willy nilly. But trying to convince the rest of the world to do the same is a quick path to grey hair.

@cuddlyogre don't convince them.

shout at them till they are frightened. then either they use a format that is meant for data exchange, or you just say "fuck you" and cease working with them.

On a serious note, did you try to read and follow the instructions before ranting?

@ostream 👍

YESSSSS!

I've been using google sheets API for redundancy, allowed access by non-devs i dont want near my DBs and easy sanitisation before it hits our DBs. Custom af discord bot for data entry... despite my loathing, coded in python for near nevessity. I HIGHLY prefer explicit typing, my js is almost always ts.

Due to python's bs assumptions changing my variables' types dynamically combo'd with gsheets API INT handlng, I was getting trunc'd, plus math/sci notation discord IDs at seemingly random times -.-

... I now have SEVERAL print type(variable) lines set to a FuckPy.typ global flag.

@dontbeevil did ostream just delete himself or something? Im not familiar with this particular brand of, what I assume is, cowardice coupled with typical '00s keyboard warrior behaviour of volatile provoking via bigoted ignorance then running or ragequit behaviour on devRant.

I'd appreciate if you filled me in.

@tosensei why not a 'your fault; you should've seen this coming' >> 'write it down on an active list of stuff you should never sink to again' ? ...cuz that's where I'm at with fucking python... and the near vitally necessary use of gsheets.

I find the action of physically writing this shit down in a hard to ignore place, like the prepended(or saved for this use) pages of current, well used, notebooks, makes it significantly harder to repeat asinine habitual shit.

You end up with a more vivid memory of the dumb shit that you did, which, surprise, surprise, had consequences that negated the initial motivation many times over.. then having a tiny tab/flag/visible bookmark always staring at you, with arguments you KNOW are sound and valid cuz you're the one who declared them as such.

I'm reluctantly in charge/responsible... i loathe this.

@cuddlyogre mind telling me the short version of how you do that with notepad++?
Notepad++ or sublime text, with several features most people find helpful, turned off, are nearly the only modern code editor shit i can tolerate (notepad.exe <3, yea... I'm legacy, chatGPT surely let's me know it, when commenting outside of the "add comments to {X}" requests.). But I've never considered it for excel, which will likely be a necessary evil w/a babydev that has unreliable internet (MM, long af war = power rationing times). His mini PC shouldnt be handling full local DBs. So an offline solution that can be easily scripted to our local (VERY local to me in USA) servers, will be needed.

...idk if im mean enough to make him learn to write a script to convert non-table value entries to json... unless he really fucks up and needs a hard lesson. Then, I'm still not sure.

@ChinUndercover even if it was possible... that's insane for anything data heavy > a high school science fair project.

I mean this in the least insulting way possible:
Are you a real dev or a newbie, 'enthusiast', spectator, etc.?

I ask because going through GUI, especially multiple menus/clicks per cell (even if highlighting many cells), is a ridiculous waste of time and resources... and asinine for any project worth scaling beyond some small proof of concept and/or personal use.

When it's a mass formatting issue that you need to handle from some type of reversion, you gotta be able to script a solution. I'm sure excel has pseudoscripting for dataset formating (~7+ yrs ago I'd have know the exact syntax... im rusty on excel). Excel is exceedingly more powerful and widely capable than the vast majority of users realise. I used to teach certification classes(mostly the reference kind, but some official, like MS, ones too). That said, my methods, still supported, tend to be legacy.