Hi again, I think I got a bit more of an idea what is going wrong thanks to Nick. I use $1 = remote(prf94120_orig, @@#$6) which reads copy from table prf94120_orig row (@) of the current to be processed field (@#) column ($) 6 into column ($) 1. The org-mode manual refers to @# as operator for formulas and hence I believe the result will be parsed by calc to get a meaningful output. That is ok for simple strings without space or comma separators, since they remain strings. However, a string like "text,text" will be send to calc as ("text","text") which is the calc notation for imaginary numbers. Either, I should use a different way to copy the column or this could be considered as a bug?! Actually, I still do not understand the need to let calc parse that a field-content. If I want to do math, I am not suppose to express this explicit by my formula? Instead of having a single field content of "1 + 2" evaluated to be "3" by remote copy, I would expect to do something like remote(NAME, REF) + remote(NAME, REF) for calculating the sum of two remote fields or in case I really have a complete expression in a single field, I would expect to do something like (calc remote(NAME, REF)) explicit to get it parsed by calc and placing the result in the new table?! Somehow, I miss something. Would be glad if someone could explain to me the reason for the original behaviour. Thanks Torsten On 15 July 2013 15:36, Nick Dokos wrote: > Torsten Wagner writes: > > > > > I can confirm that behaviour for org-mode < 8.0 (tested on 7.9.3f) if > that matter. > > Furtermore, I tested a lot of alternatives. > > "lastname, firstname" > > lastname, firstname > > lastname; firstname > > etc. > > It seems, they all get somehow evaluated by calc, which ends up in funny > different results. > > I do not understand what was the intention of letting the code be parsed > by calc but it seems to cause trouble. > > > > As I said, I don't know much about the implementation of tables, but I > think passing every entry in the table through calc is by design. And it > does not need to cause trouble either: > > (calc-eval "abc, def") ---> "abc, def" > > So trying to selectively *not* pass a cell through calc seems to be the > wrong way to go. > > > Will test to comment how to get around it > > > > Thanks > > Torsten > > > > On 15 July 2013 11:43, Torsten Wagner wrote: > > > > Hi Nick, > > > > very good observation. Just wonder are we the first who observe this > problem?! > > It seems org-table-make-reference and calc-eval have some sort of an > different idea of the data content. > > Yes calc use that notation to deal with imaginary numbers. Funny > coincidence, the students in that list just struggle with exactly those > imaginary numbers and now there names > > became a imaginary number itself... ;) > > > > Thanks for the tip, I will see if some search and replace helps me > to create a intermediate solution. > > > > Thanks > > > > Torsten > > > > On 14 July 2013 05:29, Nick Dokos wrote: > > > > Torsten Wagner writes: > > > > > I just notice a strange behaviour within tables. I want to > copy a > > > column of one table into another... using > $1=remote(prf94120_orig, > > > @@#$6). The original content consist of names in the form > > > "lastname,firstnames". However, executing the above formular I > receive > > > "lastname + firstnames i" > > > > > > I have totally no clue what is the reason for that.... a bug?! > > > Happens within Org-mode version 8.0.3 > > > > > > > I tried it (on a single table too - no remote) and I get the same > > behavior. I can't pretend to understand how anything in > org-table.el > > works, but I think this is a clue: on line 2678, > > org-table-make-reference is called. If I call it by hand like > this > > > > (org-table-make-reference "a, b" nil nil nil) --> "(a, b)" > > > > Then on line 2706, calc-eval is called. If I call it by hand on > the > > value above > > > > (calc-eval "(a, b)") --> "a + b i" > > > > I think it's trying to do arithmetic on complex numbers... > > -- > > Nick > > > > -- > Nick > > >