I just bumped into the most annoying anomaly, with some of my emails

I send heaps of water meter reads once a month, for the month

one of the meters is denoted fl1, and the number following that reliably displays right to me in the email saved local and the one that bounced back from the server, but at the other end (displayed by the recipient) the commas have been sometimes moved, and extra commas.

anyway I copied and pasted from the email into fb messenger, and they looked right to me but only just found out they were altered exactly the same the other end, wrong the same.

so I gather it’s a dodgy script or something…?

here’s an example

what I see..(of just fl1 here the problem is demonstrated)

the number they got, even if I copied and pasted from email to fb messenger (it looked like in the picture to me, which is correct)

1,486,684

Can you zip it and send as an attachment?

The Rev Dodgson said:

Can you zip it and send as an attachment?

all good photographed the numbers on my screen and sent them.

but impression i’m getting is it’s there end, their browser.

annoying anyway

i’m thinking something is making adjustments to what it senses is an error, like the four digits after the comma

transition said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Can you zip it and send as an attachment?

all good photographed the numbers on my screen and sent them.

but impression i’m getting is it’s there end, their browser.

annoying anyway

Or you could print to a pdf.

transition said:

i’m thinking something is making adjustments to what it senses is an error, like the four digits after the comma

technically it should have decimal point between two last digits

transition said:

transition said:

i’m thinking something is making adjustments to what it senses is an error, like the four digits after the comma

technically it should have decimal point between two last digits

148,6684

perhaps something doesn’t like there’s no decimal, so adjusts the comma

is the text from a plain txt file or something else?

transition said:

transition said:

transition said:

i’m thinking something is making adjustments to what it senses is an error, like the four digits after the comma

technically it should have decimal point between two last digits

148,6684

perhaps something doesn’t like there’s no decimal, so adjusts the comma

So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

If it’s from 148,6684 to 1,486,684, well, Excel does that. Type, or cut and paste, 148,6684 into Excel and it automatically changes it to 1,486,684.

So it’s probably another Microsoft bug.

Is there any reason not to put a blank after the comma, as in 148, 6684. Or change the comma to 148;6684 or 148:6684. Or add a quote mark as in ’148,6648. Those fix the problem in Excel.

In particular, adding the quote mark ’148,6648 may display at the receiving end without the quote mark, as 148,6648

mollwollfumble said:

transition said:

transition said:

technically it should have decimal point between two last digits

148,6684

perhaps something doesn’t like there’s no decimal, so adjusts the comma

So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

If it’s from 148,6684 to 1,486,684, well, Excel does that. Type, or cut and paste, 148,6684 into Excel and it automatically changes it to 1,486,684.

So it’s probably another Microsoft bug.

Is there any reason not to put a blank after the comma, as in 148, 6684. Or change the comma to 148;6684 or 148:6684. Or add a quote mark as in ’148,6648. Those fix the problem in Excel.

In particular, adding the quote mark ’148,6648 may display at the receiving end without the quote mark, as 148,6648

Format the cell as text in Excel and it will leave the text unchanged.

It’s not a bug, it’s a “feature”.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

transition said:

148,6684

perhaps something doesn’t like there’s no decimal, so adjusts the comma

So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

If it’s from 148,6684 to 1,486,684, well, Excel does that. Type, or cut and paste, 148,6684 into Excel and it automatically changes it to 1,486,684.

So it’s probably another Microsoft bug.

Is there any reason not to put a blank after the comma, as in 148, 6684. Or change the comma to 148;6684 or 148:6684. Or add a quote mark as in ’148,6648. Those fix the problem in Excel.

In particular, adding the quote mark ’148,6648 may display at the receiving end without the quote mark, as 148,6648

Format the cell as text in Excel and it will leave the text unchanged.

It’s not a bug, it’s a “feature”.

Actually you have to format the cell as text and then use Paste-Special and choose text.

The Rev Dodgson said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

If it’s from 148,6684 to 1,486,684, well, Excel does that. Type, or cut and paste, 148,6684 into Excel and it automatically changes it to 1,486,684.

So it’s probably another Microsoft bug.

Is there any reason not to put a blank after the comma, as in 148, 6684. Or change the comma to 148;6684 or 148:6684. Or add a quote mark as in ’148,6648. Those fix the problem in Excel.

In particular, adding the quote mark ’148,6648 may display at the receiving end without the quote mark, as 148,6648

Format the cell as text in Excel and it will leave the text unchanged.

It’s not a bug, it’s a “feature”.

Actually you have to format the cell as text and then use Paste-Special and choose text.

Or type a ‘ then paste. The number then displays as entered, without the ‘, and the format stays as General.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Or type a ‘ then paste. The number then displays as entered, without the ‘, and the format stays as General.

Yes. That one.

“Women and children are among a group of people murdered in a tribal massacre in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands area.
At least 24 people are confirmed to have died in a brutal flare up of violence between rival tribes over several days in Hela province. Some reports put the death toll higher.”

From the BBC, nothing on the ABC web page.

>So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

latter, but it maybe browser-wide, or system wide, not sure, it seemed to do it in fb messenger also.

i’m wondering if their encoding is set for different country, which changes decimals and thousand separators.

we’ll see anyway

I need a break, a fucken kit kat and more

poikilotherm said:

is the text from a plain txt file or something else?

email, mozilla thunderbird, originated from me

not sure what happens to it after that…..

transition said:

>So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

latter, but it maybe browser-wide, or system wide, not sure, it seemed to do it in fb messenger also.

i’m wondering if their encoding is set for different country, which changes decimals and thousand separators.

we’ll see anyway

I need a break, a fucken kit kat and more

It depends on the type of text editor/file you’re using when copying & pasting the text, copypasta isn’t just copypasta these days.

transition said:

poikilotherm said:

is the text from a plain txt file or something else?

email, mozilla thunderbird, originated from me

not sure what happens to it after that…..

Try pasting into notepad first – it’ll remove all the hidden formatting that also gets copied (I think because thunderbird may have HTML email activated), then copy from notepad to fb messenger, see what happens.

poikilotherm said:

transition said:

>So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

latter, but it maybe browser-wide, or system wide, not sure, it seemed to do it in fb messenger also.

i’m wondering if their encoding is set for different country, which changes decimals and thousand separators.

we’ll see anyway

I need a break, a fucken kit kat and more

It depends on the type of text editor/file you’re using when copying & pasting the text, copypasta isn’t just copypasta these days.

yeah nah I viewed it in another browser, using outlook online, seemed good, so something elsewhere is forcing the display of numbers using typical thousands separation, doesn’t ignore commas used as decimal, as if it were forcing numbers to appear like money or whatever.

anyway I want it to fade from my mind for the moment, otherwise someone will have to call the fixation squad.

transition said:

poikilotherm said:

transition said:

>So, are you saying that email is changing 1,486,684 to 148,6684, or from 148,6684 to 1,486,684?

latter, but it maybe browser-wide, or system wide, not sure, it seemed to do it in fb messenger also.

i’m wondering if their encoding is set for different country, which changes decimals and thousand separators.

we’ll see anyway

I need a break, a fucken kit kat and more

It depends on the type of text editor/file you’re using when copying & pasting the text, copypasta isn’t just copypasta these days.

yeah nah I viewed it in another browser, using outlook online, seemed good, so something elsewhere is forcing the display of numbers using typical thousands separation, doesn’t ignore commas used as decimal, as if it were forcing numbers to appear like money or whatever.

anyway I want it to fade from my mind for the moment, otherwise someone will have to call the fixation squad.

Nothing to do with cut and paste or text editor. Everything to do with dodgy script.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Or type a ‘ then paste. The number then displays as entered, without the ‘, and the format stays as General.

Yes. That one.

mollwollfumble said:

transition said:

poikilotherm said:

Nothing to do with cut and paste or text editor. Everything to do with dodgy script.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Or type a ‘ then paste. The number then displays as entered, without the ‘, and the format stays as General.

Yes. That one.

nope. but whatevs.

Peak Warming Man said:

“Women and children are among a group of people murdered in a tribal massacre in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands area.
At least 24 people are confirmed to have died in a brutal flare up of violence between rival tribes over several days in Hela province. Some reports put the death toll higher.”

From the BBC, nothing on the ABC web page.

Yes there is.

all good

recipient changing comma positions, not knowing what to do with fourth digit on far right of comma

runs around outside madly, randomly stopping to bang head on things

nah, really am pleased