Very Weak String Support in ODF

[Leonard Mada <discoleo@gmx.net>]

The current Formula Specification and OOo implementation thereof have a 
very weak support for strings. Even fundamental string functions are 
lacking This makes the use of ODF a poor choice for many research 
fields, where a lot of the data is in text format.

I especially miss the following functions:
1.) an extension to FIND() and SEARCH() that returns '0' IF string is 
NOT found, instead of the '#NA!" (greatly eases work with complex searches)
2.) count number of occurrences of a substring  within a string, e.g.
       COUNTSUBSTR("I11.0; E11.5;  I25.5", "I") = 2
3.) SPLIT string into substrings => perform operations on the substrings
       SPLIT("I11.0; E11.5;  I25.5", ";", IGNORE = " \n\t", SORT = TRUE)
       returns an array("E11.5", "I11.0", "I25.5")
       SPLIT("I11.0; E11.5;  I25.5", ";", IGNORE = " \n\t", SORT = TRUE, 
pos = 1)
       returns "E11.5"
       SPLIT("I11.0; E11.5;  I25.5", ";", IGNORE = " \n\t", 
RETURN_NUMBER = TRUE)
       returns (int) "3"
...

For many more examples, see any text-oriented programing language.

Sincerely,

Leonard Mada