Re: [office-formula] Our next adventure: Types and conversions

[Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera@zmsl.com>]

David A. Wheeler wrote:
> A. Logical is REQUIRED to be distinct from Number.
>     Inconsistent with OOo, Lotus 1-2-3, & many others.
> B. Logical is REQUIRED to be the same as Number:
>     Inconsistent with Excel, Gnumeric.
> C. "Logical" used as a notional type (so that we can easily
>    identify functions that take/return logicals), but we
>    explicitly permit EITHER of the above.
> I recommend "C".  If implementations can co-exist
> with this variance, I think we can too.

I would be happy with either A or C. I would not be happy with B. A lot 
of standard programming languages do C or something like it.

> Next up: how do they interact? In particular: if a function
> expects a Number but gets a Text value, then what?
> A. Text auto-converted to Number.  Excel & Gnumeric
> B. Text converted to 0.  Lotus 1-2-3 does this.
> C. Text converted to 0 if via reference, and auto-converted
>     to number if in-line.  OOo 2.0 does this.
> D. Text converted to error.  Eike thinks this would be safest,
> E. Allow some set of the above.  Spreadsheet users could
>     add VALUE() calls where they wanted conversions.

I don't like A. I like B, D and E. If I were designing a spreadsheet for 
myself I'd pick B or D but I think that compatibility with existing 
products demands E. So my vote would be for E.

Cheers,
Daniel.
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