Re: [office-formula] Synonym?

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Eric,

Eric Patterson wrote:
> 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.
>
>   
Oh, I have no problem with *including* the synonym functions, that is to 
say a function has two different names and part of its definition says 
that the name used for a function by a user shall be persisted until 
changed by the user.

But, that does not mean that we define synonym functions again. That is 
we get *one* definition of a function, no matter how many names a user 
may have for it and that are persisted until changed by the user.

It is simply a matter of cleanliness to define anything once and only 
once. It also makes maintenance in the future easier.

In an index of the standard, the alternative names would appear and 
point to the "main" entry.

But users would *always* see "their" name for a function. Never meant to 
imply otherwise.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick
> -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
>
>
>
>   

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)