Re: [office-comment] Statistical SUMMARY() function

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>]

 Leonard Mada:
> > Dear list members,
> > One of the most used features in spreadsheets is to analyze and 
> > summarize the data. This is used in academia and businesses alike.
...
> > I discussed this issue more fully at:
> > http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=89980
> > 
> > While Calc (and ODF) has (most) functions implemented as separate 
> > funcitons, it lacks a unified function to compute all parameters at 
> > once. MS Excel does come with such a 'Menu'-entry in the advanced 
> > statistical toolpack.
> > 
> > 
> > A.) MENU vs FUNCTION
> > ====================
> > Excel did implement a menu-command. Unfortunately, IF the data-changes, 
> > the computed statistics won't change and need to be manually updated. 
> > The user might not notice that the data has changed.

I've added the following text to the draft spec.  It does not _REQUIRE_
a menu/command to create a sheet with summary information, but
it clearly describes how to do it.  Implementations which do it would
(I think) meet the _spirit_ of this feature request, and I think by hinting
at this functionality (at the front), it's more likely to actually happen.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Added to "What OpenFormula doesn't include": 'a special “summarize data” mechanism that presents many different statistical values of a set of data (e.g., average, minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile, maximum, standard deviation, and mode). If desired, applications may implement such a mechanism using a “wizard” to create a set of (labeled) formulas for each of these statistical values, using the formula language defined here. Such summaries can then be exchanged normally.' 


--- David A. Wheeler