J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Extraneous Plus Sign Removal

I posted a new Excel oddity today, submitted by Joe Rosebrock: Excel Gradually Deletes Multiple Extraneous Plus Signs.

I wonder how he noticed that?

- Reader Comments -

Following are comments in response to this item.
The most recent comment is at the bottom.

1. By rcriii. Comment posted 24 November, 2008 1:25pm

   Next, activate the cell and press F2 to enter EDIT mode. Don't make any changes; just press Enter. The formula now appears as:
   
   I'm late in the day with this comment, but the formula is altered (one plus is deleted) when you hit enter or the arrow key to accept the formula the each time, not when you hit f2 to edit it.
2. By Volt. Comment posted 24 November, 2008 2:28pm

   I don't think it's weird. It's doing what you'd expect.
   
   The use of the character "+" is ambiguous in modern numeric annotation. It could be a sign character indicating positive "+2" or it could mean addition. When you enter +2 it thinks 2, signed positive and removes the extraneous "+".
   
   Whenever you enter =++++2 it thinks “nothing + nothing + nothing + (+2)” and removes the extraneous sign. Each time it is evaluated the formula has one less + and the "+" contiguous to the numeral is considered an extraneous positive sign.
   e.g. =---+2 becomes =---2 and then stops changing.
   
   try =--2--++++5
   
   What I think is weird is that Excel tolerates null operands in arithmetic except in the last operand and it does tolerate null operands for the + and - operators, but not others (e.g. *, multiplication).
   
   Why this?
   
   =5**2 evaluates to 500
3. By Jazzer. Comment posted 27 November, 2008 12:34am

   Seems to me, that ** is the same than e (or E or 10^).
   
   - Asser