OpenRefine: Behaviour of date, number and boolean values in a test/list facet is inconsistent

Version of OpenRefine used (Google Refine 2.6, OpenRefine2.8, an other distribution?):

Tested on OpenRefine 2.8 & 3.0 beta, but suspect the same behaviour is in earlier versions of OR as well

Current behaviour

There are a variety of scenarios - some described here: Create a ‘text facet’ on a column that contains date values (i.e. as dates, not strings) Try selecting rows by clicking the date value in the facet See that no rows are selected (and in 2.8 at least an additional value appears in the facet)

Create a column containing non-string values and strings that have the same visible value - e.g.:

true -> boolean
"true" -> string

Look at the facet and see the “count” is the number you would expect if you treated the string and non-string values as being equivalent.

Try selecting the value in the facet - see only the rows containing either the non-string, or only the string values are selected (which set are selected depends on the order of the cells in the project)

This latter behaviour also effects numbers and dates

If you are allowed and are OK with making your data public, it would be awesome if you can include the data causing the issue or a URL pointing to where the data is (if your concerned about keeping your data private, ping us on our mailing list):

Expected Behaviour:

There is a fundamental question here of how date, number and boolean values should be treated in text/list facets. They are currently counted as if they are equivalent to strings, and also if you try to use ‘mass edit’ they are treated as if they are the same as the equivalent string (e.g. in the example above do an edit from the facet and the boolean true and the string “true” would both be changed in the project.

I think trying to treat objects as equivalent to some strings in this situation is probably a bad idea. I can see two options

1. Similarly to how timeline/number facets treat other values OR could simply not include the non-string values in the facet and have a checkbox as to whether they are included in the filter or not - see

2. Similar to how nulls/empty strings are handled in text facets, we could have a bucket facet value for “dates”, “numbers”, “booleans” which would allow the user to select the set of boolean values but not see counts of true vs false (a further boolean facet would be needed to see that)

3. Dates, Booleans and Numbers could be included in the facet but as separate values in the facet - so all boolean true are grouped and counted separately to all string “true”

These are not necessarily exclusive options - we could implement them in combination

These are my views - please make suggestions for other behaviours or indicate which of the 3 I’ve listed individually or in combination would make most sense to you @thadguidry @ettorerizza (feel free to ping others to get feedback)