RE: [office-formula] Synonym?

[Eric Patterson <ericpa@exchange.microsoft.com>]

The motivation for including the synonym functions is to provide a mechanism to persist the spreadsheet model in the way that the user created it.  If someone create a formula with the FISHER function, Saved, closed and re-opened the file only to have it replaced by ATANH, it would cause confusion.  For that reason, I think that we need to include all of the synonym functions.

-Eric

-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas J. Guelzow [mailto:aguelzow@pyrshep.ca] 
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 2:59 PM
To: office-formula@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [office-formula] Synonym?

On Sat, 2009-12-12 at 17:25 -0500, Patrick Durusau wrote:
> Greetings!
> 
> Three uses of synonym:
> 
> FISHER: - FISHER is a synonym for ATANH.
> 
> FISHERINV - FISHERINV is a synonym for TANH.
> 
> PHI - PHI(/N/) is a synonym for NORMDIST(/N/,0,1,FALSE()).
> 
> OK, if literally true, why aren't FISHER and FISHERINV listed as 
> alternative names for ATANH and TANH?
> 
It is literally true. And nobody who would want to use ATANH and TANH
cares that there are also alternative names. We mention it for Fisher
and Fisherinv since you need to define what those strange functions are
supposed to mean. 

> Not sure in what sense PHI is a synonym for NORMDIST with a particular 
> set of values.
> 
> Do we mean it is a shorthand or abbreviation? Not the same thing as a 
> synonym.

It means it is a useless duplicate. If we wanted to write a reasonable
standard (rather than a collection of all conceivable functions used by
a collection of "special" programs), we should just omit PHI (and
probably GAUSS to).

I wrote "synonym" in that description because there is really no reason
why PHI should ever show up in a file. One could simply write the
alternative. And if you think of NORMDIST(/N/,0,1,FALSE()) as a one
variable function then they are indeed synonyms.

> Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Tomorrow morning's forecast talks about -40 degrees (Celsius and/or
Fahrenheit). So there seems to be a slum chance for a "great" weekend.

:-)

Andreas



-- 
Andreas J. Guelzow <aguelzow@pyrshep.ca>


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