Re: [office-formula] BETADIST parameter Cumulative

[Eike Rathke <erack@sun.com>]

Hi Andreas,

On Friday, 2007-03-16 14:30:51 -0600, Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:

> BINOMDIST, EXPONDIST, GAMMADIST, HYPGEOMDIST, NORMDIST have an optional
> argument (in XL, gnumeric,...) to switch between cumulative and
> non-cumulative answers.
> 
> Is there any reasonable justification why other ...DIST functions do not
> have the same switch (other than well XL picked that at random).

Not really..

> It would be easy to add this optional parameter to the programs.

> Mathematically, the cumulative distribution and the density are defined
> for all values of x, so there is no justification to have an constraint
> such as a <= x <= b. The answer outside that range should just be 0 (or
> 1 in the case of cumulative if b < x).

This is also what our current semantics describe.

> The question is now mathematically correct the function definitions
> should be.

Well, as correct, exact and detailed as possible. In this case I think
we don't miss anything, or do we?

  Eike

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