Re: [office-comment] ForceArray needs to stay

[Eike Rathke <erack@redhat.com>]

Hi Regina,

On Monday, 2017-12-18 17:49:37 +0100, Regina Henschel wrote:

> 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.

Focus on "forces the context of the expression that results in that
argument into array mode" (or "forces calculation of the argument's
expression into non-scalar array mode" as ODFF states).
Best some example:

Cells A1:A3 := {-1,-2,-3}
SUMPRODUCT(ABS(A1:A3))
results in 6 because it forces array context on the expression
ABS(A1:A3), where ABS() expects a scalar value and without array context
would take the implicit intersection of the formula cell's position and
the range A1:A3 and return one single value. In array evaluation context
it iterates over the values A1:A3 and returns an array of results.

> 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).

This is a non-sufficient example though because A2:C4 can be converted
to Array anyway. The +E2:E5 is not affected by MDETERM's ForceArray
argument.

> In my understanding "ForceArray" is a short-term for using attributes
> "table:number-matrix-columns-spanned" and "table:number-matrix-rows-spanned"

ForceArray is completely unrelated to those attributes.

  Eike

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