Re: [office-comment] ForceArray needs to stay

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

Hi Eike,

the purpose of the attribute is clear now.

It seems, that the description in the spec needs improvement.

Kind regards
Regina

Eike Rathke schrieb am 18.12.2017 um 18:41:
> 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