Re: [office-formula] Grammar

["Tomas Mecir" <mecirt@gmail.com>]

On 3/15/06, David A. Wheeler <dwheeler@dwheeler.com> wrote:
> > Do we even need Logical? Yes, I know there are implementations that
> > unnecessarily differentiate between Number and Logical, but so far
> > I don't see any benefit in defining a built-in type for it.
> >
> I think we have to.  The MAIN reason is that unless we FORBID
> implementations to have a separate Logical type, we have to be able to
> at least ALLOW implementations to have them.  Many implementations,
> including Excel, Gnumeric, and SheetToGo, have separate Logical types
> that meaningfully CHANGE the semantics of many functions.  For example,
> they all automatically SKIP Logical types when they are looking for a
> NumberSequence (so SUM, AVERAGE, etc. will SKIP Logical types).


Aye, agreed, separate Logical type is convenient. KSpread does this
skipping of logical values too, although I personally really frown
upon this - I've only put it in due to all those spreadsheets having
this behaviour, and due to OpenFormula tests requiring that. But it
can have its use somewhere.

Of course, here we also get into the whole argument of the necessity
of having the automated datatype conversions, or else we have those
adoption problems again due to more advanced users for whom it can be
beneficial - but I think I'll make a separate thread about the whole
issue - it got a bit lost in the Semantics thread.

/ Tomas