Re: [office] Office-1812

[Eike Rathke <erack@sun.com>]

Hi Dennis,

On Monday, 2009-09-28 08:39:39 -0700, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:

> I liked Rob's simple proposal better.

That was intended for the ODF 1.0 errata.

> For ODF 1.2, it is weird to talk about the formula without an "="

I don't think so.

> especially
> since it leaves an ambiguity when the namespace prefix is made optional.

No, it doesn't. If the prefix isn't present it defaults to OpenFormula,
there is no need for an '=' equal sign. Note that the namespace does not
prefix the formula part of the expression, but the entire attribute's
value. If it prefixed the formula itself, there would be confusion for
conditions like cell-content-is-between(xx:Value1,xx:Value2) if the 'xx'
namespace used a comma operator.

> I
> also don't understand why there is all of that syntax for the OpenFormula as
> default, since all we require is that the formula produce a
> Boolean-compatible result (that is, anything that would be accepted in the
> first parameter of the IF function), leaving anything else implementation
> dependent/defined.

I don't see where we leave anything else implementation-dependent or why
we should do so. The formula producing the boolean result may be any
formula expression as long as it produces a boolean result. To me it is
absolutely logical and consequent to default to OpenFormula as formula
definition for any formula expression part in ODF 1.2

> SPECULATION: Perhaps the requirement should be that if there is no namespace
> prefix, there must be a leading "=" to avoid confusion.

Again, I don't see any possible confusion without the '='.

> Also, I think we
> should be kind to down-level implementations, if any, for which they could
> not possibly have meant that default namespace.

What are you talking about? The default formula standard for ODF 1.2
should be OpenFormula. An implementation using different
syntax/semantics should write a namespace prefix. It couldn't be easier
for down-level implementations.

> SIDE COMMENT: At least one very-well-known spreadsheet implementation does
> not put "=" prefixes on the stored form of formulas.

So ...?

> There is an ambiguity around the use of an additional "=" to indicate a
> recalculation requirement, however. This is probably something that should
> be raised on the OpenFormula calls.

As also mentioned in today's subcommittee's call:

An additional '=' to force recalculation indeed doesn't make sense in
*:condition attributes.

I further see some contradiction between the definition in OpenFormula
5.2 Basic Expressions that says

Formula ::= '=' ForceRecalc? Expression

and thus mandates a leading '=' equal sign, and some places in ODF 1.2
part-1 that make the '=' optional or explicitly state that no '=' equal
sign is present. IMHO, the presence of '=' and ForceRecalc should be
defined at the document level of part-1 instead of in OpenFormula.

  Eike

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