Re: [office-formula] USDOLLAR

["Andreas J. Guelzow" <aguelzow@math.concordia.ab.ca>]

On Wed, 2007-21-03 at 15:04 -0500, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> Eike:
> > Excel has USDOLLAR, which, contrary to DOLLAR that is locale dependent,
> > always returns a string containing '$' as the currency symbol.
> > 
> > I propose to not define a function for one specific currency. Actually,
> > to display such fixed strings number formats can be used. Applications
> > that want to support the function should store it as
> > COM.MICROSOFT.USDOLLAR
> 
> Counter-proposal: I think we should keep it.
> 
> Actually, I think you've got a good rationale for removing it.  It's certainly a little ugly to have a single-currency function.
> 
> But let see if I can convince you that it's worth keeping:
> * Many countries use the U.S. Dollar, formally or informally so there's some justification for it even at an international level.
> * It actually HELPS when exchanging spreadsheets, specifically because it's not locale-based. Locale-dependent functions have all sorts of issues.
> * I believe a number of spreadsheet files use it... so including it aids transition.
> * I believe other spreadsheet implementations also include it (which I'm pretty sure they do).
> * It's really easy for implementations to include this function.
> 
> In short, to aid transition purposes, I think there's value to it... especially since it's "cheap" for us to include it.
> 
> I'm sure not hard-over on this one.  Anyone else have an opinion?

I am with Eike on this one:

$ is _not _ the US-Dollar symbol. So a function returning the dollar
symbol (for example also used for the canadian or australian dollar)
shoudl be called DOLLAR. Of course that symbol is already used to return
the YEN symbol.

I do not understand the point of having a function such as DOLLAR  that
gives different currency strings depending on locale. So you take a
spreadsheet that talks about US dollars and open it in japanese locale
and voila now all dollar signs become yen signs. I sure hope the numbers
change to go along with the change in currency symbol.

Andreas
-- 
Andreas J. Guelzow, Professor
Dept. of Mathematical & Computing Sciences
Concordia University College of Alberta