handsontable / handsontable/hyperformula

[Bug]: moveColumns and setColumnOrder update relative cell references differently

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API Bug Impact: Medium
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description
Behavior

HyperFormula.moveColumns updates formulas with relative cell references to use the new column addresses.

Demo: https://codesandbox.io/p/sandbox/hyperformula-movecolumns-relative-references-7zlvyz

HyperFormula.setColumnOrder does not update formulas with relative cell references.

Demo: https://codesandbox.io/p/sandbox/hyperformula-setcolumnorder-relative-references-3n7y35

Expectation

I would expect HyperFormula.setColumnOrder to update formulas with relative cell references to match the behavior of HyperFormula.moveColumns.

My understanding is that HyperFormula.setColumnOrder should behave identically to multiple, equivalent calls to HyperFormula.moveColumns.

For example:

const engine = HyperFormula.buildFromSheets({
  Sheet1: [["A", "B", "C", "D"]],
});

engine.setColumnOrder(0, [2, 3, 0, 1]);

// [[ "C", "D", "A", "B" ]]
console.log(engine.getSheetSerialized(0));

should always behave equivalently to

const engine = HyperFormula.buildFromSheets({
  Sheet1: [["A", "B", "C", "D"]],
});

engine.moveColumns(0, 0, 1, 4);
engine.moveColumns(0, 0, 1, 4);

// [[ "C", "D", "A", "B" ]]
console.log(engine.getSheetSerialized(0));

If this is not the intended behavior, could you please provide a recommendation for how to move multiple columns simultaneously such that formulas with relative cell references are updated.

Video or screenshots

No response

Demo

See description (multiple demos provided)

HyperFormula version

3.0.0

Your framework

No response

Your environment

Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the two CodeSandbox demos and compare the public setColumnOrder and moveColumns entry points, especially how relative references behave after reordering. Done means setColumnOrder updates relative cell references consistently with equivalent moveColumns calls, with the demonstrated cases covered by regression tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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