Problem with space-delimited files

[Christine]

I have found a problem with saving as a .PRN (space-delimited) file.
If I have a field that is formatted as a Number, and it is followed by
a General format field (text), and I save as a .PRN file, the
"delimiting" space is being placed BEFORE the string, and not after!

Try this simple test.
Create a worksheet with the following cells:
one 2 three 4 five 6
Then save as a .prn ("space delimited").
You will see this as your output:
one 2three 4five 6

I know that numbers are right-justified, and therefore the PADDING
should go on the left ("before" the field data). But shouldn't the
DELIMITER always come AFTER the data, before the next field?

Is this a known bug? Or is it a "feature"? How can you get
consistent delimiters out of data that is mixed between character and
numeric? I am using Excel 2002 SP-1 (Excel 8.0). Thanks for any
assistance.

Christine Wolak -- Senior Programmer -- Axiom-corp.com

 

[Dave Peterson]

Maybe you could just put a filler column between the columns you want separated.

Or just format that column and have it reserve some space to the right:

Select the column
format|cells|Number Tab
Custom category
General_(spacebar)

"General_ " (but without the quotes)

 

[Christine]

Maybe you could just put a filler column between the columns you want separated.

Or just format that column and have it reserve some space to the right:

Yes, I know some ways to get around it by changing the datatype of the
column and all that, but that doesn't change the fact that in my
opinion it's broken. And my main problem is that the client has been
DEPENDING on this behavior - they actually WANT this numeric field
(the ONLY numeric field in the spreadsheet) to concatenate to the next
field! But since the underlying field is actually text and not
numeric, I had to change the data type, and suddenly it's not
concatenating the way they wanted it.

I just need to figure out the best way for me to fix my client's
problem. If this is a documented "feature" - as in this is actually
working as designed and I'm the only one that doesn't understand why
this is desired functionality; that "space delimited" actually means
"space delimited unless it's a number field followed by a text field
in which case the two fields are concatenated" - then I would just
change the field back to numeric and leave it at that (and hope that
no text data creeps into this later to cause a problem). If there's a
chance this is going to get fixed in the future, I'd fix it a
different way - concatenating these two fields myself into one text
column.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't know if it's a bug or a feature. You could write to
(e-mail address removed) and ask them to change the behavior.