Re: [office-comment] ForceArray needs to stay

[Regina Henschel <rb.henschel@t-online.de>]

Hi Eike,

it is not clear to me. The description currently contains "This means 
that no implied intersection is performed, instead where a reference to 
a single cell is expected and multiple cells are provided, iteration 
over the multiple cells is performed and results are stored in an array 
that is passed on."

But in case of the functions MDETERM e.g. (and others listed in 
https://issues.oasis-open.org/browse/OFFICE-3942) there is not "a single 
cell is expected", but the parameter is expected to be an array.


From the practice of Shift+Ctrl+Enter, which I assume forces to 
non-scalar mode, this is not a property of a special function, but the 
property of the entire expression. For example I can use an expression 
like "=MDETERM(A2:C4)+E2:E5" in scalar mode (=intersection) or in 
non-scalar mode (=iteration).

Having ForceArray at a parameter in the syntax of a function makes no 
sense to me. In my understanding "ForceArray" is a short-term for using 
attributes "table:number-matrix-columns-spanned" and 
"table:number-matrix-rows-spanned" and using the result of the formula 
in the top-left cell of that spanned area for the entire spanned area, 
following the rules described in "3.3 Non-Scalar Evaluation (aka 'Array 
expressions')" part "2) Matrix evaluation".

Some more input from you is needed for me.

Kind regards
Regina




Eike Rathke schrieb am 18.12.2017 um 15:57:
> Hi,
>
> It came to my ears ;-) there is some discussion that the ForceArray
> attribute would be redundant as already implied by Array and could be
> removed.
>
> That is not the case.
>
> ForceArray is a calculation context attribute, not a parameter type. The
> ForceArray attribute is described at
> http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/os/OpenDocument-v1.2-os-part2.html#ForceArray
>
> ForceArray forces all context of the argument and the expression that
> results in that argument into array mode / matrix evaluation, regardless
> whether the function is part of an array/matrix formula expression.
>
> See 3.3 Non-Scalar Evaluation (aka 'Array expressions')
> http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/os/OpenDocument-v1.2-os-part2.html#Non-Scalar_Evaluation
> 2) Matrix evaluation.
>
> I hope that helps.
>
>   Eike