Re: [office-formula] Groups - OpenFormula Specification 2007-06-20(ODT) (openformula-20070620.odt) uploaded

[Andreas J Guelzow <aguelzow@math.concordia.ab.ca>]

On Wed, 2007-20-06 at 21:45 +0000, david.wheeler@OpenDocument.us wrote:
> Functions and operators that receive one or more error values as an input
> shall produce one of those error values as a result, unless the formula or
> operator is specifically defined to do otherwise."

Are we sure about this. I can't get to a current version of the
openformula specs in the moment (slow dialup) but this is not true with
respect to the latest version I have handy. For example COUNTBLANK and
ISBLANK typically do not propagate errors but the description of those
functions does not specifically address this issue.

In any case I am not sure that requiring "one of those error values" as
a result is a good idea. An implementation that has a large number of
possible error values may want to return a less specific error value if
many different error values come together in a formula.

Andreas

PS: I guess we should stay away from the questions whether formulas such
as A1*A2 and A2*A1 should always return the same value.
-- 
"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