Re: [office-formula] Re: OASIS: Infix Operator "^"

[Eike Rathke <erack@sun.com>]

On Thursday, 2007-02-22 14:33:32 -0700, Andreas J Guelzow wrote:

David:
> > Spreadsheet applications generally agree that "=-2^2" computes as 4,
> > and that "=2^3^4" is 4096.  Certainly both OpenOffice.org and Excel
> > agree on that, and if I recall correctly, many other spreadsheet
> > applications do as well.
> 
> I would like to point out that Gnumeric does calculate =2^3^4 as
> 2.41785163922926E+24. So "generally agree" is not quite correct.

Seconded. I also tend to disagree with the current draft for the
definition of ^ being left-associative. The case of =-x^y being handled
as =(-x)^y is common agreement it seems, but left-association is
arguable, I think. OOo currently follows Excel there, others do
different.

I'm a bit undecided though, and it's not clear what impact a definition
of right-associative would have. I don't know to what extend 2^3^4 and
expecting left-association is used in the wild.

  Eike

-- 
Automatic string conversions considered dangerous. They are the GOTO statements
of spreadsheets.  --Robert Weir on the OpenDocument formula subcommittee's list.