Re: PI()

[Helmut Wollmersdorfer <helmut wollmersdorfer gmx at>]

Nick Lamb wrote:

> As I explained clearly in bug 162682 this isn't a matter of Excel compatibility
> it's simply that Gnumeric's rounding functions were hacked in quickly and
> never tested.

> Go ahead, do as I just did and type "=CEILING(-2.5)" into Excel, and it will
> tell you that you need to specify an additional argument, and offer to show
> you Excel's help pages for the 2-argument CEILING() function.

No time at the moment, to boot Win and verify this.

> Some weeks ago I asked Andreas about this stuff, but he claimed the Excel
> functions were a "generalisation" of the mathematical functions ceiling()
> and floor(). I have no idea where he got his idea from, he doesn't seem to
> have a copy of Excel or of the Excel documentation, which is why I asked
> him if he understood it. Instead he took my question as an insult, and
> tried to insult me back, as though this was a game of some sort.

I read this discussion, and invested some hours googling math-references 
and reading math-books. I found no clear definition to decide the 
discussion. My test cases against XL showed no difference of Gnumeric.

BTW: From time to time I try to improve the test cases of Gnumeric. It 
would be nice to define online references for the more complex math, 
stat and scientific functions. My education as Master of Business 
Economics (something like an MBA) will definitely be a little bit 
insufficient for some of the functions.

Helmut Wollmersdorfer