Bug 150320

Summary:	Calc: Link converted to text on copy of cell
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	BDF <bugs_documentfoundation_org.5.kuru>
Component:	Calc	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED NOTABUG
Severity:	trivial	CC:	miguelangelrv
Priority:	lowest
Version:	7.3.5.2 release
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature:		Regression By:
Attachments:	cell copy bug Copy A3 to A9

Description BDF 2022-08-09 18:41:00 UTC

Description:
When a cell with a link (eg. "=A1") is copied to another cell, the link is replaced with the content of the cell.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a link in one cell (eg. "=A1" in B1)
2. Copy the link to a new cell with Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V

Actual Results:
The cell content is switched from a link to text

Expected Results:
Do not change the cell content.
If the content needs to be changed ask me OR If the content is changed by LO tell me so.

Reproducible: Always

User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
Version: 7.3.5.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 184fe81b8c8c30d8b5082578aee2fed2ea847c01
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: de-AT (de_AT.UTF-8); UI: de-DE
Flatpak
Calc: threaded

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This behaviour changed some time ago (first observed in mid to late July). Before the change it was like I was used to and I will ever consider as sane behaviour: When you copy and paste a cell with Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V the cell is copied 1:1 and the content is neither changed nor transformed.

Since it's consistent and you can do Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V to get a 1:1 copy, I don't think this change was done by accident.

Yet I simply have to see it as bug based on the fact of what I'm doing and how this change manifests itself. I have a table in calc where I calculate some values. The values are not written in but linked from another cell so that the same value that is used multiple times on purpose can be changed very quickly. What this "feature" does is that it destroys exactly this mechanism without telling me so. Since it worked the opposite way for the last decade or so I most likely will forget to check the link at some point and I will be stuck with a 'hard' (not linked) value in one or more cells if I don't double check every single cell (for 2022 I currently have ~1500 entries to check).

If the change was done on purpose, this behaviour should never be the default in any case.

Since I only copied the cells with Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V and never changed any settings I don't think I caused this behaviour.

Comment 1 BDF 2022-08-09 18:45:38 UTC

Created attachment 181667 [details]
cell copy bug

cells:
A1: Random string (cell to be copied)
A3: Cell in which "=A1" was typed in (exact copy of A1)
A5: Cell copy of A3 with Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V (the link "=A1" is replaced with the content of A1)
A7: Cell copy of A3 with Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V (the link "=A1" is copied 1:1)

Comment 2 BDF 2022-08-09 18:54:13 UTC

Incredibly wonky behaviour (based on provided ods file)

1) I copied the content from A3 to A7 then A5. A7 (former with link) turned into the value for A1 (so link->text) and A5 turned into the link (so it's content changed to "=A1")

2) When I copied A3 to A9 the link "=A1" changed to "=A7". I have absolutely no idea why and what is going on there. Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+V did not help anything.
I observed this before and consider it as bug as well. The thing that did moved around this was with eg. "=$A$1" which copies to every cell as you would expect it.

Comment 3 BDF 2022-08-09 19:06:07 UTC

Created attachment 181668 [details]
Copy A3 to A9

Video of number 2) as described in my last comment

Comment 4 m_a_riosv 2022-08-10 22:10:13 UTC

Can't reproduce, I never have seen such behavior.
Version: 7.4.0.2 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 1512ce97d7ed39dce3121f7e15651fd8895f950e
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19044; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: es-ES (es_ES); UI: en-US
Calc: CL

Please test with a clean profile, Menu/Help/Restart in Safe Mode

Comment 5 BDF 2022-08-11 06:40:15 UTC

(In reply to m.a.riosv from comment #4)

> Please test with a clean profile, Menu/Help/Restart in Safe Mode

I downloaded LibreOfficeDev-daily-x86_64.AppImage from https://libreoffice.soluzioniopen.com/daily-version/ and tested it there.

It works exactly as described same.

Version: 7.4.0.0.alpha0+ / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 465c3ad95059f0efa13c8027f7383c4d20a5b2ff
CPU threads: 16; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: de-AT (de_AT.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Comment 6 Timur 2022-08-11 09:39:11 UTC

Comment 0 is a basic feature of spreadsheet and NotABug. 
It's easy to change. 
You need to use http://ask.libreoffice.org/ for questions and support. 

Comment 1 no repro. 
I didn't proceed further, video is not appropriate for this. 

BDF, you reported 37 bugs, so you are a frequent reporter. 
But you have mostly duplicates, Notabug, WFM, InsufficientData. 
Please search more before reporting and verify it's really a bug. 
See https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugReport

You may learn about absolute and relative references in Calc.

Comment 7 BDF 2022-08-11 18:11:29 UTC

(In reply to Timur from comment #6)
> Comment 0 is a basic feature of spreadsheet and NotABug. 

Can you may enlighten me how inserting values randomly can be considered a "feature" let alone a "basic" one.
This type of "festure" than I can only describe as _I know better what you need than you know yourself_ is an Apple level style of development.