"Problem with Filter Example Range"

Nick_Coldhand

I'm using Excel sheets with Date as ID, and found this strange behaviour, everytime the example set goes through the "Filter Example Range" operator:
1. If Date is in Excel "Date" format (MM/DD/YYYY), every filtered example is dated 1/0/1900
2. If Date is in Excel "Number" format (# days from 1/1/1900), this doesn't happen and all is well
3. If the sheet is imported in my repository, and the "Retrieve" operator is used to read it, every filtered example is dated 1/0/1900, regardless of the date format when the sheet was imported.

haddock

Hi there,

I deal with time series a lot and suspect that the answer is more probably outside RM. Running the following gets some data from an SQL database, samples some into an .xls file, and reads that file. No probs encountered.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<process version="5.0">
  <context>
    <input>
      <location/>
    </input>
    <output>
      <location/>
      <location/>
      <location/>
    </output>
    <macros/>
  </context>
  <operator activated="true" class="process" expanded="true" name="Process">
    <process expanded="true" height="391" width="915">
      <operator activated="true" class="retrieve" expanded="true" height="60" name="Retrieve" width="90" x="67" y="106">
        <parameter key="repository_entry" value="//SQL Data/Updates"/>
      </operator>
      <operator activated="true" class="sample" expanded="true" height="76" name="Sample" width="90" x="246" y="30"/>
      <operator activated="true" class="write_excel" expanded="true" height="60" name="Write Excel" width="90" x="380" y="120">
        <parameter key="excel_file" value="C:\Documents and Settings\Alien\My Documents\test.xls"/>
      </operator>
      <operator activated="true" class="read_excel" expanded="true" height="60" name="Read Excel" width="90" x="447" y="255">
        <parameter key="excel_file" value="C:\Documents and Settings\Alien\My Documents\test.xls"/>
      </operator>
      <connect from_op="Retrieve" from_port="output" to_op="Sample" to_port="example set input"/>
      <connect from_op="Sample" from_port="example set output" to_op="Write Excel" to_port="input"/>
      <connect from_op="Write Excel" from_port="through" to_port="result 1"/>
      <connect from_op="Read Excel" from_port="output" to_port="result 2"/>
      <portSpacing port="source_input 1" spacing="0"/>
      <portSpacing port="sink_result 1" spacing="0"/>
      <portSpacing port="sink_result 2" spacing="0"/>
      <portSpacing port="sink_result 3" spacing="0"/>
    </process>
  </operator>
</process>

However....

With the date 1/0/1900, excel is referencing a cell without data typed in and gives the base date instead

.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Excel-1059/Cell-references.htm