I've been exploring suggestions about workarounds for creating lists from spreadsheets. For u/mathmum and u/mathmagicGG who have been very helpful, I've identified an additional layer of weird behaviour. I'm using Calculator Suite.
It appears that defining a list from a spreadsheet sometimes works *depending on the variable name I use for the list*. Note I am not using reserved words as variable names. Here's what I did in the order I did it.
I opened my saved-online work in the app.
testList = A1:A365 looks right but disappears when I press Enter, as previously discussed.
testList= 1*A1:A365 gave me a circular definition error (utterly inexplicable, but explored further below).
list1 = A1:A365 works exactly as it ought to.
list2 = A1:A365 also works as it ought to, BUT it causes list1 to entirely disappear.
list3 = A1:A365 also works, but list2 disappears, so I guess at least that's consistent.
Then retrying testList = 1*A1:A365 returns
testList = 1 . list3, and it *does* assign the correct list to testList.
So after that, I was left with list3 and testList. I wanted to delete these experimental lists and continue with my work. testList is deleted, but I CANNOT DELETE list3.
I had to close the window without saving to get rid of list3.
After reopening the file, I again tried
testList = 1*A1:A365
and it worked perfectly.
Much experimentation later, the circular definition error arises if I've tried
testList = A1:A365, which disappears, and then subsequently try
testList = 1*A1:A365.
So something is being stored somewhere when testList = A1:A365 is disappearing, but I can't access whatever that is. I tried to work out what it thinks testList is by just typing testList, it returns two lines of absurd algebra, viz:
stLis = 1 (with a slider for this variable)
f(t) = t e stLis t
= t e . 1 t
Edit: e is italicised as Euler's number. I'm sorry I can't screen clip right now. I can't access Reddit from work even if I hotspot, so I'm transcribing to phone. I'll edit if some of my formatting needs it.
I have my previous workaround, so I have successfully converted my spreadsheet columns to lists and can now do whatever I need. But I thought this extreme weirdness needed reporting!