Re: [office-formula] 3-d references

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

On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 18:23 +0100, Eike Rathke wrote:
> Hi ericpa,
> 
> On Tuesday, 2008-11-25 05:16:43 +0000, ericpa@microsoft.com wrote:
> 
> > Reading through section 5.8, I have a question about 3-d referencing.
> > Given a reference of the form:  =SUM(['Sheet1'.B4:'S heet2'.C5])
> > 
> > Does the specfication explicitly define how to interpret references of
> > this type when there are more than 2 sheets involved?  Excel, for
> > example will sum the cells in the specified workbooks AND all cells in
> > sheets that are positioned between the 2 sheets.  
> 
> Same with Calc. I think we don't mention it explicitly at other places,
> but   6.3.10 Infix Operator Reference Range (":")   says
> 
> | Takes two references and computes the range, that is, a reference to the
> | smallest 3-dimensional cube of cells that include both Left and Right.
> 
> A cube to my understanding does include all atoms in between corners,
> sides and edges ;-)
> 

While this may be what "cube" means it seems to me that the shape of the
space matters:

In this context most users will likely think of the sheets as layers and
so "cube" appears to mean (to me at least):

for 'Sheet1'.B4:'Sheet3'.C5 with Sheet2 located between Sheet1 and
Sheet3:

the union of the ranges B4:C5 on all sheets, ie. a total of 
3 times 2 times 2 = 12 cells,
(3 sheets, 2 rows, 2 columns)

I think interpreting this to be ranges B4:C5 on Sheets 1 and 3 but all
of sheet 2 does _not_ fit into the normal understanding of "cube".

Andreas

>