Probably MM/DD (2 Jan) vs DD/MM (1 Feb) since Excel uses it's current locale for parsing. (=SUM in en-US, =SOMME in fr-CA for example... making any SaaS app in Canada that exports xlsx files is always rough.)
Why would you need to localize it there? I'm sure it's the Excel the user has is the one doing the localization, so I can email my French colleague an Excel file and the formula in B5 which is =SUM() on my machine will be =SOMME() on hers.
There's even sites for the dictionary of the function names, but googling "Excel french dictionary" gives you the top result that "That word in French is 'exceller'!"
(For good reason) Language is a picky thing in Canada, it's very important (when selling to the federal government or Québec) that both English and French localizations have equal footing.
To open a en-US XLSX file in a fr-CA copy of Excel, you will need the en-US language pack. If you make this a requirement for a Québec government entity... you will not get that contract.
> To open a en-US XLSX file in a fr-CA copy of Excel, you will need the en-US language pack
Are you sure? That sounds insane. Maybe if you're exporting a CSV where you insert the formulas as text, and expect the Excel to do some magic conversion..
I'm pretty sure that XLSX file is "universally" openable, and the user using the fr-CA copy of Excel will see =SOMME( ... ), doesn't matter what locale the source Excel is.
ChatGPT says:
> The Office Open XML specification, standardized as ECMA-376 and ISO/IEC 29500, defines how formulas are stored in XLSX files. It specifies that:
> Function names and formula grammar are stored in a locale-independent (invariant) format in the file — specifically, English-language function names.
> You can find this in: ECMA-376, Part 1: Fundamentals and Markup Language Reference, Section 18.17 “Formulas”
It might have changed since I last had to deal with this (I hope!) but excel, at least ~5 years ago, was storing cell contents as they appear in the function box in the UI. As in, `1,23` is 1 and 23/100 when read in fr-CA, and this would apply to the function names as well. So `=SOMME(...)`. Excel is smart enough to pick up on a locale flag in the file format, but obviously it then shows you a dialog asking you to convert it, needing the language pack.
I also won't assume that we were making "good" excel documents. It's possible we were shipping badly made exports haha
ISO order is the correct order. 2025 April 7 or 2025-04-07 or whatever. Human-read numbers are big endian and dates should be big endian to maintain that consistency.
Also, America uses ISO order, we just use a comma. 2025 April 7 is the same as April 7, 2025. Just like Bill Gates is the same as Gates, Bill.
in my country you read and speak numbers 97 like 'seven and ninety'.
this is normal.. :p
aslong as we dont base our endianess on how french pronounce or read nrs i think we can work with it.
that being said, i am for ISO notation if you want to order something in a list. year, month, day seems logical in this case as it will easily sort chronologically. i dont see another real reason why one would be better than another.
I am trying to learn Danish. I cannot agree with this enough.
Consider "halvtreds," the Danish word for 50. A reasonable person might expect it to mean "half-three" based on pattern recognition and the fact that tre is three. But no! It's actually a compressed version of "halvtredsindstyve," meaning "half-third-times-twenty" or (2.5 × 20).
This continues with "tres" (60), "halvfjerds" (70), and "firs" (80)—all using a vigesimal system that, if you studied French, seems reasonable.
Except, well, the Danes don't properly sanitize their inputs. "femoghalvfjerds" (75) translates to "five-and-half-fourth-times-twenty," combining decimal and vigesimal systems with zero regard for foreigners...
I'm half joking. We are writing numbers in big-endian in all the discussed formats (euro, american, iso) so I do think it makes sense to store dates in big endian to maintain consistency with that and lists and such. Otherwise people can do whatever makes sense culturally to them. Americans also write today's date like 4/7/2025 which is obviously middle endian lol