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


Hi David,

On Thursday, 2007-06-21 11:21:24 -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote:

> I said:
> > > 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."
> 
> Andreas J Guelzow :
> > 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.
> 
> I think that's ambiguity in the text above - thanks.

It's more ambiguity of the function descriptions, in this case
COUNTBLANK.

> What I _meant_ was, COUNTBLANK(1/0) will respond with an error.
> COUNTBLANK(Range) depends on what happens when errors are in the range.

Not quite. Usually an error in a range passed to a function propagates
through the function. COUNTBLANK is an exception in that it ignores
errors.


> > 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.
> 
> Hm.  Maybe we should back off and just say "returns an Error"?
> 
> Any suggestions on how to reword this?

Isn't this good enough?

Functions and operators that receive one or more error values as an
input shall produce an error value as a result, unless the formula or
operator is specifically defined to do otherwise."


> > 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.
> 
> Yes please :-).  Almost everyone implements "normal" numbers by
> calling down to the CPU's numerical processor, and many don't fully
> comply with IEEE (etc.) standards.  We can't solve everything.

I think Andreas was referring something different. Assuming cells

A1: =1/0
A2: =0/0

will produce different error values, as is the case in Calc, the formula
=A1*A2 will return the error value of A1 while =A2*A1 will return the
error value of A2.

  Eike

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


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