Spreadsheet: Maximum Grid-Size

[Leonard Mada <discoleo@gmx.net>]

Dear TC members,

just a general comment and question regarding:
http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/OFFICE-1138

I prefer to reference entire columns in formulas: e.g. SUM($A:$A) - this 
is currently NOT working in OOo, but works in Excel.

The big advantage of this reference is, that whatever the number of 
records in column A, I always will get the correct result. So, whenever 
possible, it is much preferable over selecting a range.

This is also a very good way to define named ranges, as the named range 
will be unaffected by inserting or deleting rows.

I hope that ODF (and OOo Calc) will support this feature in the future.

Now, moving back to the original issue and my old comment regarding the 
maximum grid size.

Supposedly, we will have the $A:$A feature.

And suppose that a clever implementation has an infinite grid size. Does 
this mean that NO other implementation will be able to open that 
spreadsheet, because on encountering =SUM($A:$A) it must fail?

Therefore, setting the grid-size also has direct consequences on the 
implementation and limits the implementation to the classical way.

And how should the grid-size be stored in this spreadsheet? Like (Inf, 
Inf)? Do we have an "Inf"-keyword?

If the grid-size is such a needed feature, than I propose to add the 
"Inf" keyword, to define an infinite grid-size.

It would be nice to know, how the various spreadsheet programs will 
behave when "Inf" is set as grid-size (e.g. max row-size=Inf).

Sincerely,

Leonard