Re: [office-formula] MIN/MAX/MINA/MAXA and no value, zero?

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

I think of it like this:

If a user passes in a range to the function,
then the range may contain numbers at one point and no numbers at another
point.  In fact the person who entered the spreadsheet formulas may
be a different person than the person who enters the numbers.  It
is quite common for one person to define the model, enter the formulas,
and make the formula cells read-only and define other ranges for the user
to enter data.  So during the process of data entry the range may
at one moment have nothing, and at another moment having numbers.

On the other hand, a function that is
passed zero arguments will never become correct by the process of data
entry.  It will never change unless someone changes the formula.

-Rob


Andreas J Guelzow <aguelzow@math.concordia.ab.ca>
wrote on 03/09/2007 02:30:36 AM:

> On Thu, 2007-08-03 at 17:53 -0500, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:
> > 
> > Are you suggesting a general rule that passing zero arguments
to a
> > one-argument function is implementation defined?  Or only
in the case
> > of these four particular functions? 
> > 
> > I guess I'm trying to think of a good reason why we would not
want an
> > error in that case?   
> 
> On one hand I can't think of any reason why somebody would want to
use
> the min/max/mina/maxa functions without any arguments. On the other
hand
> there seem to be no real difference between passing a region that
> contains no values at all and omitting the argument.
> 
> Andreas
> -- 
> "Liberty consists less in acting according to
> one's own pleasure, than in not being subject 
> to the will and pleasure of other people. It 
> consists also in our not subjecting the wills 
> of other people to our own."  Rousseau
> 
> 
> Prof. Dr. Andreas J. Guelzow
> Dept. of Mathematical & Computing Sciences
> Concordia University College of Alberta
>