Re: How to copy formulas from a text or remove (') from ('=) in many cells WITHOUT using CSV files ?

[John Denker <jsd av8n com>]

On 02/16/2015 09:19 PM, Yury Dubinsky wrote:

> ' Search for "=", replace by "=".
>   On the Advanced tab, uncheck "Keep strings as strings"'

Interesting question!

I tried it in version 1.12.21 with a different result,
namely nothing.  I cannot match '= in any way.  For
example, I cannot replace '= with '=111 ... let alone
replace it with =111 without the quote mark.

On 02/16/2015 09:48 PM, Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:

> > am wondering about your choice of words "an error message like this".

The error message that the OP reported is 100%
consistent with the language that appears in
the source:
  https://github.com/GNOME/gnumeric/blob/4868f3d7c14cf491319f57676cf024953e5eaa4f/src/wbc-gtk-actions.c#L498

=======================

Also:  I checked to see if the replacement task
could be done using the python interface.  If
the documentation is to be believed, it can't.
A cell can be changed using the set_text function,
but there is no sign of a set_formula function
... or indeed any set other than set_text.

========================

CSV is not a very good option, because there
are a lot of things that cannot be represented
in that format.

HOWEVER, that brings us to one of my favorite
filthy tricks, namely hacking the .gnumeric
file.

zcat foo.gnumeric > bar.gnumeric

edit bar.gnumeric;  change 
   ValueType="60"
to
   ExprID="1"
in the obvious places.

You can open bar.gnumeric using gnumeric directly; 
there is no need to recompress it.

Chez moi I see a warning, but the overall result
seems to OK.

If I make a trivial change, save it, and re-open it, 
the warning is gone.

For double-quoted strings, the process is similar,
but there would be, in addition, a couple of " 
entities to get rid of.